It’s my birthday. I am 70 years old. I am deeply shocked. Seriously. From the time I was born I was taught by my parents, my church and by every significant adult in my life, that I would not grow old. When I was a child I was told I would not reach adulthood. When I was an adult I was told I would not reach old age.
I was taught that I was in this world but not of this world. My life teachers convinced me that the world I saw, the one that appeared to be real, was temporary, as was my life as I knew it. I watched, with the rest of my family and friends, for the life we were living, to end, any day. It was exciting, in a way. Because the next world was going to be so much better.
For my first almost-40 years I believed what I was taught. And although I no longer believe the teachings of my youth it seems like remnants of those beliefs are still hanging around like ghostly reminders.
The reasoning behind this belief was derived from my family and church’s interpretation of Bible prophecy. It went something like this: If we watched what happened in Israel we would be able to predict when Jesus would return to the earth and set up a “kingdom”, a “new dispensation” (I always loved the way that word sounded). In 1967 my family was excited with anticipation. Israel had just won the 6-day war. They had captured all of the “Holy Land.” It was now a Jewish land…all of it. I was in grade 7 and I remember coming home from school expecting to hear my parents tell me that Jesus had appeared. I knew that Jeremiah and Isaiah had said something important about the Jews return to the “land of Israel” and that what they said those thousands of years ago was true. I believed that the present world with schools and malls and Friday night skating would not be around long enough for me to graduate, have a family or ever, God promising, or in my wildest imagination, turn 70.
It’s been 30 years since the last time I sat in church and listened to an exhortation or a lecture enthusiastically predicting the “time of the end.” So, when I say I am deeply shocked that I am 70 years old I mean that while the supporting belief structure, the religious worldview, the specific doctrines and ideas I once agreed with have long since dissolved, some ghosts from the past still haunt me.
Perhaps the most haunting thing about thinking about my past and my present is that I’m watching people with similar time-of-the-end worldviews determinedly doing what they can to make it happen—to destroy and bring and end to “this world” as thoroughly as possible. They are teaching their children that they don’t have to respect or even tolerate “others,” they don’t need empathy and they don’t have to care for the planet because God is going to destroy “this world” and create “another world” that is going to be much better. Shocking? Unsettling?
Back to being 70. I’ve done plenty of personal work on accepting growing old. The gray hair, the weighty body, the saggy skin. I get that part. I embrace the natural, material process. I am mother to a 50-year-old, grandmother to a 27-year-old and to 7 other beautiful young people. I’ve done enough to warrant being 70. I celebrate almost every one of those things (there are a few things worth forgetting).
I am extremely grateful that I have been privileged enough to live this long. Friends are dying. So far I have avoided that fate. At least for now. I know. Seventy is not an achievement. It is a gift.
I am no longer annoyingly overly humble. I’ve lived for 70 years and I know some things. I also know there are a million other things I don’t know. It is satisfying to know that both knowing and not knowing are equally okay.
I am part of a generation. The largest generation the west has ever known. I’m not alone. Many of the early boomers have already passed. Compared to them I am still relatively “young.” So, I get it, I should not be even slightly surprised that I am 70.
Surprised or not. I am 70. I have had a super-charged, interesting and privileged life. I have lived on the outskirts of “the world.” It’s a feeling many of us share and a space I am happy to inhabit.
I am here. Perched on my particular tiny place on the planet. Still searching for what it means to be human. A female human. An old human. A loving, sharing, caring, empathetic, privileged, pale skinned, wrinkly pale skinned, a bit outspoken former super-Christian human. A human who birthed a huge, loving family of humans that protect and nurture me.
I am 70 and I am happy to have had the gift of health that has allowed me to reach such a wonderful age.
Thank you for sharing this birthday message with me. Thank you for muddling through it to the end…or to the not end…the end that goes on and on and on…
