After putting it off for years, I finally took myself to the dermatologist to have a couple of suspicious spots looked at.
"Gifts of age," she told me, after a biopsy revealed nothing sinister. "Seborrhiac keratoses." Ditto for any number of little bumps here and there. I am blessed with gifts of age.
Her phrase, however, set me thinking about other gifts of age. Oh, sure, there's diminished strength, endurance, eyesight, hearing and many other gifts I'd just as soon not have. But there are other gifts of age that deserve appreciation.
There's an increased appreciation for little things like the smell of new mown grass, the flash of a yellow swallowtail against the spring green, the delicious cool of night air and the caressing warmth of the morning sun. Even simple things like scrambled eggs or sliding into bed between clean sheets are sensory delights.
I'd like to think too that another of my gifts of age is a philosophical tolerance. Increasingly, I find myself thinking, Not my circus, not my monkeys in reaction to some manufactured flap in the news or on social media.
Pronouns? Have at it. I'll do my best to honor your preferences. Lifestyle choices--clothing, hairstyles, body modifications--I'll nod, semi-appreciatively, and be glad I don't feel compelled to keep up.
I remember back when I was a teen, (that time when fitting in seems so important) one of my friends, who was very popular and attractive, confided that she looked forward to being an old lady so she could sit in a rocking chair and smoke a pipe.
That was never my ambition, but I do rejoice in the thought that I'll never wear high heels or panty hose again.
