julierichmond

I went for my regular ob/gyn visit the other day. It had been a while, surprising given my age, sixty-two, and the joy of laying under fluttering paper with feet in stirrups, and bare bottom, shining like, yes, the moon. Of course, I don’t know what my bare bottom actually looked like; I was not in a position to see much except for my doctor. She was lovely and gracious, checked to make sure the room was the right temperature, allowed me to prattle on about my kids before we got down to the business of the appointment.

Afterwards, she washed her hands. I sat up on the table, my feet, still in socks, dangled towards the floor. The doctor explained everything looked good, my ovaries were shriveled up to about the size of tiny grapes, (didn’t she mean raisins?) and I needed to schedule my mammogram.

It was hard enough confirming my age at the beginning of the appointment. But to be reminded that I am in my sixth decade and then told that my ovaries were shriveled?

I left the appointment and called friends and made the whole conversation a funny anecdote ending with “can you believe she said that to me?”

The whole time I was chuckling on the phone, I was sulking inside. I didn’t want to go gently into the good night. I didn’t want to be sixty-two.

For the record, I don’t like what gravity has done to my breasts, the laugh lines around my eyes, (crinkles, I guess, the word sounds like shriveled to me,) and that my feet are sore when I first wake up if I don’t stretch them out before bed. I don’t like having to stretch my feet out before bed; I don’t have the time, I floss longer than anyone I know in an attempt to make up for all the years I didn’t listen to the dentist.

But it finally occurred to me that yes, I am sixty-two. it’s not quite as great as thirty-two. But my kids and I have actual conversations. The people I call my friends must be really good friends because they have stuck around so long. And that sixty-two might be a bit easier than seventy-two or eighty-two.

I’m healthy. I go the gym. I can survive a forty-five minute high intensity workout without having to sneak to the ladies room for a breath. My body is pretty good to me, crinkly eyes, defeated breasts, and shriveled ovaries.

Getting older is, (and this is hard to say but I truly believe it, most of the time,) a privilege. It will be whatever I make of it. I don’t think I will grow older gracefully, but I’ve never been graceful and that’s never bothered me at all.

I plan to continue being who I am, at sixty-two, and sixty-three, and so on, and, hopefully, so on.

Today, I spent some time with my twenty-one year old daughter. She was bemoaning all of the work she has to do for college, the challenges of finding a summer job, and juggling all of this, along with time with her friends and stuff like laundry. “There aren’t enough hours in the day!” she exclaimed.

I said, as people do, especially people my age who have recently been to the gynecologist- “Enjoy these times, Katy. They go by so fast.”

I don’t think she heard me, or she did, but I’ve said it before. But she doesn’t have a clue what I mean. Lucky, lucky, girl, my daughter.

And I am a very, lucky woman, a work in progress, who needs to go stretch my feet because I’ve got a lot to do in the morning.