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The 1969 Club...
By Carol Suder
The countdown is on…seventeen months until that chant I have been singing for siblings and friends finally becomes my reality; “Lordy, lordy, look who’s 40.” As a person who has spent a lot of my time around younger people, as a lifeguard in my late teens and early 20’s; as a religious education teacher while I was in college; as a high school teacher; and now as a mom, I have always been celebrating the age of those who are younger than I. To come up with a way to celebrate my own age forces me to think like a 38 year old.
It has become a universal thought among my friends who are in my general age range that we do not feel like that number that represents the number of years we have been around. Instead, there is a feeling that we are certainly way more hip and “young” than those generations who have come before us. As a friend and I talk about how we feel at our age, we come to the same conclusion: It has to be different now because we don’t FEEL like we are in our mid to late 30s. Maybe the reason they don’t ask for our ID anymore when we order an adult beverage is that they are becoming less stringent on those drinking laws…or maybe it is because we are almost double their age.
Identification cards aside, I do think these are the best years of my life. My husband treats me with respect and love, and I have the privilege to be home with my daughter. Not only do I get to see her youthful energy as she leaps into every experience with ebullience and fortitude, but I get the benefits of building friendships with people who are at the same stage in life. The perquisites become the “girls’ nights out,” and the neighborhood parties and get togethers.
Believe me, as the big 40 nears, there are plenty of things to ruminate on, but what I have chosen to do is to create a “1969 club” and plan a big birthday bash with two of my girlfriends who will be celebrating their 40th within three weeks of mine. The celebration will be outside of the county, because I heard if you celebrate in a foreign land, it doesn’t count, right? See with age comes wisdom we are almost double their age. Identification cards aside, I do think these are the best years of my life. My husband treats me with respect and love, and I have the privilege to be home with my daughter. Not only do I get to see her youthful energy as she leaps into every experience with ebullience and fortitude, but I get the benefits of building friendships with people who are at the same stage in life. The perquisites become the “girls’ nights out,” and the neighborhood parties and get togethers. Believe me, as the big 40 nears, there are plenty of things to ruminate on, but what I have chosen to do is to create a “1969 club” and plan a big birthday bash with two of my girlfriends who will be celebrating their 40th within three weeks of mine. The celebration will be outside of the country, because I heard if you celebrate in a foreign land, it doesn’t count, right? See with age comes wisdom!
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