To One Hundred and Twenty

Yesterday, was my birthday, and it was a significant birthday at that.
When I was young, the age I am now seemed impossibly far away--after marriage, after children (yeah, I didn't realize that there is no 'after children')--and certainly after the 8th grade for heaven's sake!

But somehow, the earth kept orbiting the sun, and the years kept passing--faster and faster, it seems--and now I have reached that age that I had once defined as "old." Others, it seems, define it so as well. AARP recently sent me an offer of membership. But of course, it is unlikely my generation will ever see those social security benefits we've been paying for since we started working. So if I were to get an AARP membership, it would only be to emulate the boomers when they were young, and burn it in a protest march.

So here I am, having reached my childhood goal of being "old", only to think that I am not so old at all! I don't wear purple (at least not often), my trousers are only rolled when I have to wade through the snow (creeks being somewhat scarce here), and I certainly don't drive like an old lady (except on a very blizzardy day in the canyon).

Fortunately, when my beloved Engineering Geek toasted me over the cake, which was presented at a New Mexico Patriot Alliance meeting, he said, "May you live to 120!" This comes from the age at which Moses died, at which time "his eye had not dimmed, nor had his moisture fled." So the blessing implies living to a righteous old age enjoying life of the mind and a little loving now and then.

My fellow patriots presented me with a plaque that honored me as the "mother of the R3volution". And I quipped that I am happy that they didn't say "grandmother of the R3volution". But the EG's toast did give me a wonderful new goal, now that I realize that my current age is not "old." Old is 12o! And now I have a new goal: to live to be 120! Which would take me well into the second half of the current century. A worthy goal.
What miracles and wonders would I see, should I live so long?

And so, given my venerable age and gender, I wish to change my mind. I'll tell my patriot friends that I do want to be "the grandmother of the R3volution." When I am old. When I am closing in on 120!

May we all live "to 120!"