Birthday post

    It’s my birthday today. It’s also the birthday of a dear friend, and because it’s her 60th, she is having a party, and because it’s my 73rd, an insignificant number, I’ll give up a celebration of my birthday to join her for hers. She did the same for me when I turned 70. I did the same for her when she turned 40.
    Nonetheless, the day should not go by unremarked, so I’ll remark on it with a poem from a series of poems I’m working on about aging.


    I Always Thought I Would Grow Old Gracefully

I always thought I would grow old gracefully
    graying graciously as I knitted by the stove
    smiling sweetly as conversation wafted
        unheard over my head
    setting aside my tennis racket with just a tiny sigh
        when arthritis-riddled hands
        lost their grip.
I always thought
    I would use my cane with dignified acceptance
    and be an example to young people
    that growing old
        is not the horror
        they think it is.

But now that I am here
    growing old and graying
I see the fallacies of my fantasies.
I am fighting tooth and nail
    (thank goodness I still have tooth and nail)
    against the signs of old age coming.

I swear at the tennis ball that knocks the racket from my hand.
I rant without cease over hot flashes and night sweats.
I curse the knees that creak and moan
    as I stoop to wipe
    a spill from the floor
I weep over the thinning of my once-luscious, thick hair.

For all the good it does.

It would be better to ease gracefully
into old age
better for me and better
for those around me,
because, after all,
what is there to get so worked up over?
It's just a little bit of gray,
an ache and a pain here and there,
and if it's a sign of what lies ahead,
isn't it better to bend to the inevitable,
smile and say, "You win,"
than to be a poor loser
with the temper of a child?