Anticipation ..

In just a few hours I will enter upon my 70th year. I am still awake because I cannot keep myself from pondering this and wondering how it could possibly have come about. On Saturday I was at my eldest nephew's house to celebrate my brother and sister-in-law's 50th wedding anniversary. I was the best man at their wedding. I was only 18 and having to speak in public , to toast them, was a horrible experience. I could never have imagined then that I would end up earning a good bit of my income from ... public speaking -- but that is anther story. Pat, my nephew, toward the end of the celebration, told me I did not look old. Nor do I feel old. A few infirmities, true, but nothing serious. Still, I simply cannot reconcile my sense of myself with being old. I am a Peter Pan type. I suspect that Gwen, my stepdaughter, whom I love as if she were my own daughter, probably could say more about this than I can possibly bring myself to, because I think she knows me better than anyone. But why go on about this, when Jacques Brel said it all years ago.

P.S. I should have been clearer - or less elliptical, or whatever. I turned 69 today -- meaning that I have entered upon my 70th year, at the end of which I will have reached 70. But thanks to everyone for the kind thoughts.