A few days ago, it occurred to me I’ve been living much of this year with a slight feeling of dread. I’ve noticed that vague suspicion for some time but wasn’t sure what it was or where it originated. It began around January. Then, I pulled an old blog post out of a folder as I was sorting things and read the title: “Some Thoughts on my 69th Birthday.” Wow.
It began with: “When I woke this morning on October 2, 2015, I suddenly realized two terrifying facts: while it might be my 69th birthday, I’ve actually lived 69 years already. Instead, I am beginning my 70th year today. Somehow that makes a difference. Second, the first students I taught are now eligible for social security. It was enough to make me pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep.”
Bingo! My feeling of dread now makes sense. I glanced at the
calendar. This year is my 80th year, and October has a date on my
calendar that will live in personal infamy.
Last weekend, that thought was brought home to me when I had a book signing, and a former student of mine from my first year of teaching showed up from another state to have me sign his book. It’s a memoir about my teaching life. His arrival was a wonderful surprise, but it also a reminded me my first students are now 75 years old! Egad! How did this happen?
Ah, the origin of my feeling of dread. I now understand.
Now, I will attempt to make it go away by trying to account
for the thoughts I can summon up to remove the dread concerning my slow march
toward fall. After all, we writers are superb at finding rationalizations.
I’m undoubtedly fortunate. People no longer question me if they
observe me parking in a senior citizen spot with a handicapped sticker. I’m not
sure if this is good or bad. Let’s call it neutral.
Numbers are amazing parts of our aging, if only in our
minds. If you had asked me many years ago if I’d have a long life, I would have
said, “No.” I was the puny one, the runt of the litter. The thought of living
to three score and twenty was never on my radar. Why would it be? On my next
birthday, I will have outlived my mother by twenty-four years and my younger
brother by thirty-four. But my older brother has three years on me and is still
plugging along, and my father, who died in 2007, lived to be eighty-seven. You
never know, do you? I believe I will hope for the best combination of genes on
this one.
I’ve made it to a decent age when you consider that life
expectancy in the early twentieth century—the century in which I was born—was
forty-six. The high school class of ‘64, both cursed and applauded as the first
year of the Baby Boomers, is turning eighty with me. Most of us are now retired
and have survived long enough to no longer wear a watch or set an alarm clock.
On days when we wake up without aches and pains, we check to see if our hearts
are still beating. So far, so good.
I find some advantages to my thoughts about still breathing, well, other than the obvious one. First, I was fortunate to have a profession I loved, and it brought me into contact with thousands of students who came in and out of my life, some indelibly etched on my brain for assorted reasons. That career also provided me with excellent fodder for my mysteries where Grace Kimball, retired teacher, remembers an adult she encounters who was once a teenager in her classroom.
Then, there are my children. I have three adult children for
whom I’m no longer legally responsible. They are still speaking to me most
days. We lived together over a twenty-five year period and survived. But, just
in case, I have long-term care insurance.
Then, I have eleven grandchildren who love to read. It
obviously skipped a generation despite doing my best as a parent/English
teacher to their parents. I must find some way to take credit for this gift in
my grandchildren.
Rationally, I think I’ve made a case to remove my feeling of
dread this year, but, once again, rationally, will I be at my computer typing
away at a blog for Writers Who Kill expressing a vague feeling of dread in
2036? One can only hope.
Susan Van Kirk writes the Endurance Mysteries, a
cozy/traditional series set in a small Midwest town. Her latest book is a
memoir about her forty-four years of teaching. Sign up for her newsletter, or
find out more at susanvankirk.com
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