Life Begins At Forty (W. B. Pitkin)

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.
(Jack Benny)

A few weeks ago I received an email from a friend of mine after I told her that I didn’t understand one of the jokes/video link she previously send because it was aimed at the over 40 and I wasn’t yet 40. Ok maybe not funny but it’s my sense of humor and I do whatever I want with it (besides it’s been going one between the 2 of us for the last 3-4 years and unfortunately it will now have to stop, unless she send me jokes for the 50 and over).

So as I was saying she sent me this email (you know the ones you have to open the attachment and it turns out to be a PowerPoint presentation with cheesy beautiful pictures and cheesy lines). Well this one was called George Carlin’s view on aging (it turns out it’s not George Carlin’s words but might be Larry Miller’s… I’m a control freak and check everything that might be a hoax on snoops or hoaxbusters … Again I have weird way of spending my time but hey it’s my partytime and I’ll cry waste it if I want to, waste it if I want to… you would waste it too if it happened to you lived in Norway)

So anyway it reminded me of a conversation my daughter Chloe had with one of her friends a few years ago when we lived in Aberdeen, Scotland. I was driving with Chloe, then almost 4, and her friend Camille and those 2 little girls were talking about birthdays and who was the oldest, meaning at this age older equals better. Than Camille mentioned that it was going to be her mom’s birthday that weekend and she would turn xx (number withheld for sensitivity privacy issue ). Chloe asked me how old I was and when I told her I was zz (that’s xx+2!!), Chloe proudly told her “My mom is older than your mom” which prompt me to explain to Chloe that past a certain age you aren’t usually advertising the fact that you are older. I’m not sure that explanation did anything to them since they kind of look at each other thinking I must have gone mad.


Anyway this is the text:

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids?

If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. "How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five!

That's the key. You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back.

You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. "How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16!

And then the greatest day of your life...you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony...YOU BECOME 21 YEARS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He TURNED, we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50... and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60. You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70!

After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime.

And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

Well I think I’m just going to say my age in months just like “Petits Bateaux” (I love them because I’m still a size “14 ans*” for them. Really check out their website FR - & US) so happy 480 months young to me!

How many months are you?

*really, do I need to translate that? Please!! Ok just to make sure you don’t think it’s size 14: “14 ans” means 14 YEARS OLD

“Life is what you make it. 

Always has been, always will be.”

Eleanor Roosevelt