Birthday. Happy?

So yesterday was my birthday. You can fill in all the complaints about getting older yourself. EVERYbody complains about it. In fact, half the birthday cards you see in stores are one joke: "Haha, You're getting really OLD!"

(To the people who send me cards: Thank you for knowing not to send me cards reminding me that my body is going downhill, I'm not adorably young anymore, and soon I'm going to die.)

I like the saying that "it beats the alternative." You're lucky if you get to grow old. Like people walking a labyrinth, being young or old is simply a matter of being in different places on our journeys. 

But of course that's not comfort enough. There must be reasons it's all for the best to be where I am on the journey in 2011. Hmm...

1. There's Facebook, where lots of people -- many I haven't seen since I was adorably young -- wish me Happy Birthday. That wasn't possible before, and in the future people might be too busy playing with holograms (or something) to bother. That, or the polarization of rich and poor will have friends living without running water, let alone Facebook. Well, yay!

2. I am forever younger than Vivien Leigh and Eleanor Powell. I adored them as a teenager, but now I can look at their beautiful young selves and think, "Yeah but I'm still younger." Any day now, that's going to work for me.

3. In years past, people my age were on the verge of retirement. I'll probably never be able to retire. But that's great, because I'll stay active! And that will keep me healthy and happy, right?....  Right?

4. I'm a baby-boomer. I have lots of company. There's no way a whole generation of us could be thrown under the bus without adequate care in our old age... right?

5. Okay, well if the younger generations aren't able and willing to sustain the Social Security and Medicare we've paid into, think of this: they LOVE our fashions. Save everything. Our "how could I have worn this" is their "vintage." As long as eBay survives, so will I.

6. Now dark chocolate and red wine are good for me. (Take that, Vivien!)

7. Someday there will be a cure for wrinkles and pimples. But I get to have both. It says, "I'm not too young, and I'm not too old." For what, I don't know. It sounds good, though.

8. When shopping for clothes, there are distinct departments suited to one's age. An immediate reaction of, "Cute!!" interrupted by the realization that I'm not 17 anymore propels me into the next department. There I see "career" clothes, where fantasies of being chic and smart in some high-power position are interrupted by the realization that I work in bare feet most of the time. Off I go to the next department where the clothes are hideous, shapeless, but often 70% off. By the time I hold up a square-shaped t-shirt with daisies on it thinking, "Well this one isn't so bad," it's just time to go. This is all for the best because I save lots of money, which I may need later when I can only afford to eat cat food.

9. Besides, in generations past, women wore the only thing worse than pantyhose: stockings with garter belts. (I'm old enough to have experienced that horror.) And in the future everybody will be wearing those stretchy outfits like in Star Trek and Lost in Space, I'm sure -- and they look itchy. Ugly daisy t-shirts are better.

10. I remember the COOL disco dancing, not the John Travolta Wonder Bread disco dancing! The hip, funky street hustle was apparently such a rare, fleeting phenomenon that nobody else seems to remember it. (Somebody please tell me I'm not making it up.)

Yes indeed, 2011 is a great year to be on the edge of retirement age without being able to retire while wearing daisy t-shirts and dining on red wine, dark chocolate and cat food. There was never a better time.