"My financial plan only needs to go to seventy because that's all the longer I plan to live"  A financial planner quoting a client

 

I was quite taken by this comment from a financial planner sitting on a panel with me on retirement planning.  It was a week before my sixty ninth birthday and I didn’t think I was THAT old.

What does 70 look like?  People look a little surprised when I tell them my age.   I’m not 70 yet, you understand?  I am only 69 1/2.  But I’m getting ready.  There will be celebrations and a major physical challenge. More about that later.

Do you notice that we count babies’ ages in months?  I  think we do that until 24 months.  Then we go to 2 1/2, etc.  I remember my grandson announcing he was 4 3/4.  At some point we get more vague.  We are 20 something or 40ish.  Then the even more general “middle age”.  I once heard the definition of middle age is ten years older than you are.   I am always amused at a 60 year old refering herself as middle age.  I guess if you are going to be 120 that would be true.  At some point we go back to being more specific.  Betty White described herself as 84 1/2.  We go full circle.  Although I have never heard someone describe himself as 960 months old.  And then we have our descriptive names:  infant, toddler, pre-schooler, kid, tween, teen, young adult, and then we have the gap until the indeterminable middle age and the dreaded “senior citizen”.

I would rather eat ground glass than call myself a senior citizen.  (unless it is for movie tickets or a very deep discount or the lifetime pass to National Parks)  Middle age for obvious reasons just doesn’t work anymore.  At my last birthday I took a big gulp and announced to the world that I was entering my 70th year.  On September 22 I turned 69.  Please don’t tell me I am only as old as I feel.  Some days that would make me 120.  Some days I look in the mirror and don’t recognize that old person.  Other days I look pretty good and on top of the world.

I am slightly ahead of the baby boomers, the first of whom are turning 65 this year.  They are exploring new territory and I seem to be the forward scout.  There are no role models for me.  What is your image of 70?  I am guessing it is not me.  Some things about me I am guessing are not typical:

I went to law school in my 50s and I continue to build my own solo legal practice, and not just show up a couple times a week

I Twitter

I am active on Facebook

I just traded my Blackberry for an iPhone  (I have had an iPad for several months already)

I’m an avid fan of Bikram Yoga

I  purchased and read “How Not To Act Old” and “How Not to Look Old”.  This means I am learning to avoid skin colored hose, text with my thumbs and not my index fingers, and never ever wear dark lipstick.

I have found, however, that I prefer my own company most Saturday nights, rarely hit the latest happy hour, and have eschewed on line dating as just not having the patience to do the getting-to-know-you dance.  I don’t consider that a sign of old age but merely a sense of being discriminating with my time and energy.  I don’t suffer fools gladly.

This is not to say I don’t have an active social life.  I am very active in several community organizations and attend many “networking” events.  I have a small group of female attorneys we call the Law Ladies.  We meet once a month and the members are my daughter’s age or younger.  It seems most of my friends are my daughters age.  They have started asking me about menopause and, frankly, I don’t remember.

This is just some background to explain the premise of this blog.  I know there are fitter, more active, more attractive 70 year olds or older.  Think Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, Cher, Gloria Steinem.  And that  is just the point.  I am not an outlier.  I am what 70 is now.  I hope to offer a template for my baby boomer sisters (and brothers) who are entering these so-called golden years.

It really is not your grandmother’s 70.

But you don’t look ________(that old)

Gloria Steinem is one of my heroines. She came into my life at just the right time. When she turned 40, it was unheard of for a woman of such years to admit her age.  She did.  People kept telling her that she didn’t look forty. She put herself on the cover of her magazine, Ms, with the statement “This is what forty looks like”. Most of us didn’t think it was what we thought forty looks like.   I saw Gloria last year. She is now 77. She still looks amazing.  Not amazing in a plastic surgery, tight faced way but in a healthy, good attitude toward life sort of way.  She continues to serve as my role model on how to age.

I felt I always looked pretty much my age — in a good way, but always age appropriate.  I was not carded in my thirties, no one ever thought my daughter was my sister  I never had the experience of the jaw drop when I revealed my age. Until lately.  I’m not sure when it happened but sometime about sixty. Maybe it’s because I went to law school in my 50’s. My friends were all much younger then and they continue to be so now as I hang put with what I consider to be my professional contemporaries.  Several recent incidents made me realize an in-congruence.  There was the health insurance consultant who asked me when I would be eligible for Medicare. Uhm, been there for several years.  The women my age who treat me as very much their junior.  A doctor who does cosmetic procedures who looked genuinely surprised when she learned my age.  My favorite was the business consultant who asked me where I wanted to see my business in ten years.  Uh, alive?  Lately I have been feeling I need to show ID to prove my age.

Don’t get me wrong. No one sees me as a femme fatale. I don’t get questioned when I ask for senior tickets at the movies  I’m considered to be a nice middle age lady.  If I’m middle age, I have to live to be 140!  So here is the conundrum. Do I go along with folk’s perception or do I announce to the world:  “Hey, I’m going to be 70 this year.”.   I’m choosing the latter. I want to be a mentor and a trail blazer. I am determined to show women that it is never too late. Never too late to start a new career, a new life, begin a new hobby.   I think it best serves that purpose if I can say “This is what seventy looks like.”  God that sounds old!

Yesterday the first baby boomer turned 65. I’m ahead of the curve. I’m not exactly a member of “the greatest generation”. (Never mind that I was born in the wrong county for that). I’m apparently five years older than the oldest boomer, yet that is where I feel I fit. I was part of the large classes, the cold war nuclear threat and the bomb drills at school. I watched the Kennedy inaugural and funeral. I danced to rock and roll even though I was never an Elvis fan. I always thought I was a baby boomer. Now I have officially been displaced.

This is the year the first baby boomer turned 65. It is the year I turn 70.   I know it is cliche to say this but it really has been a surprise to me.  My friends are in their forties and fifties and seem to treat me as their contemporary. I just looked up mortality rates and it appears I have 19.2 more years.    That puts a better perspective.

These are my musings. I’m still in search of a title. 70 by 70 just doesn’t resonate with me even that worked for my friends. My friend Debbie wrote 40 by 40 and another wrote 60 by 60.  My writing will be more contemporaneous. The absolutely funny life of someone pushing 70 still talking about career success, fashion, dating and rock concerts.

So we begin this run on day two of the year I turn 70.

Stick around.  There are surprises ahead. Good ones I hope.