Birthday Musings
By Charles P. Eberson
Senior Moments
I celebrated yet another birthday last week. No, there wasn’t an inflatable bounce house, nor pony rides or even three-legged sack races. Certainly, a trampoline also wasn’t in the mix. While this birthday didn’t qualify as a traditional “milestone,” I consider each year after seventy a significant event and cause for celebration.
Celebrations may mean different things to different people. Some may mark the day’s passage of time by skydiving, going for a run or bike ride for the distance of whatever their age is, i.e. 70 miles, 73 miles, etc. Reading 70 or so pages in a book is more to my liking. My family has often floated the idea of publishing a book entitled “Poor Chuck” depicting the physical mishaps I have survived over the years as evidenced in Urgent Care and ER records. At social gatherings, my family loves to regale my tales of woe while I simply sit there sheepishly attempting to justify my actions to no avail.
It starts out “remember the time…” and so it goes. Tearing the ligaments in my right ankle in a motorcycle accident, tearing the ligaments in my right ankle trying to impress a couple young ladies by my basketball prowess, skateboarding in my 60’s when an unseen lip in the sidewalk sent me head over heels, falling on a New England rock jetty and fracturing my wrist and the list goes on. My mother was acutely aware of my recklessness, which was reinforced by me being hit by a car at nine years of age and ending up in the hospital. When I left the house, she was never sure in what condition I was going to return and later, a sentiment that was shared by my wife and children.
Mercifully, one aspect of aging is wisdom. Perhaps it is the accumulation of life experiences or the input of information through reading or interpersonal relationships. One awakens to what is profoundly important and meaningful and separates the wheat from the chaff. This may pertain to people who enter your life. There is going to be disappointment but time and energy shouldn’t be wasted ruminating. It is an emotion manufactured internally by ourselves and is unnecessarily eroding one’s peace.
I have found there is also a generational difference in values which one has to face that can lead to frustration; differences in worth ethics, morals, fortitude. I sound like my parents now, complaining about the long hair, rock music and protests but I guess this is also a product of aging. Fortunately, there is always my wife, who often pulls me kicking and screaming back from the ledge urging me to meditate and have patience. So, instead of New Year resolutions which I have given up years ago, I am embarking on Birthday Resolutions, one of which is to keep walking when I come across a stray skateboard. We don’t need to add any more pages to “Poor Chuck.”
Charles Eberson has been in the newspaper business for over 25 years. He has worked as a writer, advertising executive, circulation manager and photographer. His photography can be viewed at charles-eberson.fineartamerica.com
