Did you hum or sing that title?  Did it leave you with an earworm? Did you want to dance the Charleston?

Probably not if you are under the age of fifty ( or ninety if you are not at all musical).

Of course, the lyrics aren’t “sixty-two, eyes of blue” but “five foot two, eyes of blue.”  I took the liberty of changing the words because I am, as of today, sixty-two years old.

Also, my eyes are more aquamarine than blue, and even though I’m shrinking, I’m still a little taller than five foot two.    I needed something to rhyme with sixty-two, and the song popped into my head. Also floating through the gray matter were sixty-two, get a clue and sixty-two, got the flu, and I’ll be honest, I was rather fond of  Sixty-two, Blue Gnu, but I couldn’t figure out how to work that into the post and still make any sense.

Whoa! Four paragraphs just to get to the point.  I’m sixty-two.    Evidently, a person gets wordier and more ramble-y when we turn sixty-two.

Why is it the older we get, the faster the years seem to go? With each birthday my first thought is “wait, I’m how old?”.  In fact, it feels like a blink since I had my fortieth birthday, imbibed a little too much and got a tattoo. And if I’m sixty-two, that means my drunken four leaf clover tattoo is twenty-two years old!   No wonder it looks more like a palm tree than a clover…

I don’t really feel old except when I try to get bendy or something.  I am definitely not bendy.  I’m sure I could be if I put in the stretchy time and hard exercise work.  But I use the excuse that as we age our bones get brittle and maybe if I worked hard to get bendy, I’d break something. I’m pretty sure it takes longer to heal when we’re in our sixties.  So…screw bendy.

But I am working hard to embrace aging.  People have told me that visualization techniques work, so I embrace aging and visualize myself as a giant anaconda squeezing all the old out. It hasn’t worked yet, but I’m going to keep trying.  I don’t think I’ll break anything visualizing.

Even though I swear at each new wrinkle, I won’t shoot my face full of Botox because it might alter my perfect resting bitch face. It’s the one thing that gets better every year.  I think I’d miss people wondering who I’m mad at and telling me to smile.  Also, I’d be that one person whose face melts off ( I read it on Facebook, has to be true..everything on Facebook is true…right?).

And the cherry on the birthday sundae is; I recently went for an eye exam just because I wanted new glasses.   Had I known the eye doctor was going to tell me I have the beginnings of a cataract I would have kept the old glasses and stayed in my happy bubble of oblivion.

Really?  I’m sixty-two, shrinking, not bendy, got wrinkles and I have a baby cataract.

(This would be the perfect place for Roseanne Roseannadanna to say “Mr. Fader you sound like a real attractive guy”.  Again, if you’re under a certain age and have never watched SNL reruns….google that.  It’s funny.)

But, while I love to complain about aging, it’s really all in fun.   I wouldn’t change a thing because I’m happy right where I am.  I’m sixty-two, enjoying the view or Sixty-two, lots to do and all that happy, positive stuff.

Sixty-two, Blue Gnu ( because I could).

It’s going to be a great year.  I might be shorter, stiffer,  shar-pei-ish and cataract-y but I’m going to love and be grateful for every single day.

But I will keep practicing that anaconda visualization technique, just in case.