Another Birthday And It Was A Big One
By Thomas Morrone CFP®, CPA
As many of us age with dignity, birthdays seem to just come and go. Each birthday is special and each and every year can be viewed as obtaining one more mile stone in life. My most recent birthday was a bit different, not just because I was now another year older but I reached the ripe old age of 60. Many of you have already reached this age and flew by it with a blink of an eye. Others are dreading the day when it is your 60th. Some may look at me and think of me as a puppy and yet again others may think I am an old fart.
The perception on age is obviously affected by one’s own age and the ages of your circle of family and friends. It seems as a population we are never satisfied regarding our age. When I was younger, it seemed I would do certain things to look older. When I was in high school, I was one of the few guys that had a mustache. I was told it made me look older, more distinguished. Well I sported that mustache for over 25 years. That changed one day when Kelly was a little girl and she commented that my mustache was all grey. Enough of that. Now the hairy upper lip made me look TOO old so I immediately shaved it off. That was decades ago but I remember it well. I am sure Kelly does also because after I shaved she screamed when she saw me for the first time without a mustache for the first time in her life. The silly things we remember.
So now that I am officially six decades strong, I do think differently about life. What will the next decade be like? How many more decades will there be? Will I continue to age with dignity? There are times I try to convince myself that why even bother thinking about these things because I have absolutely no control over their outcomes. But that doesn’t matter nor does it stop me from staring at the ceiling wide awake at 3:00 AM thinking of lyrics from Bruce Springsteen “…with a freight train running through the middle of my head….” I can think about all these crazy things tomorrow. But nonetheless I guess that is part of the aging process.
Women on the other hand have the market cornered on looking younger. Cosmetics, creams, lashes, make up, lipstick, hair color, lotions, etc. The retail environment thrives off women. There are entire stores, large stores, filled with all these products to entice women with the hopes of looking younger. Men on the other hand could care less. Well, let me not generalize about all men but I can say that many guys just care that their hair is groomed and their clothes are somewhat stylish. Again, when we were younger we wanted to look older and were anxious to get older. Now that we are older we wish we were younger. My hair is grey but thankfully I have hair and I do not care what color it is.
Right now I am looking forward to making it to age 61! One year at a time.
Until the Next Tom’s Take…
