Conrad Boyce is the editor and publisher of the Cosmos. He has a BA in English from the University of Alberta and a diploma in journalism from Grant Macewan Community College in Edmonton. He lived and worked in the Yukon and Vancouver Island before arriving in Ontario in 1995. Beyond these pages, he is the Artistic Director of OnStage Uxbridge, and the technical manager of the Uxbridge Music Hall.
The big 6-0
Sometime on Tuesday, I crossed a line. I went from being “middle-aged” to pretty much a senior citizen.
Now I know the definition of a “senior” varies a lot. I could have joined the Uxbridge Senior Citizens’ Club years ago. I’m not eligible for my full Canada Pension for another five years. And for various retail or fast food chains, I could have signed on for discounts at various times over the last decade.
But basically, seniorhood is a state of mind, and the bottom line is that I can no longer think of myself as “in my fifties”. I’ve entered my seventh decade, and by the time I get out of it, I’m going to be pretty ancient indeed.
On the other hand, I don’t really feel a heck of a lot older than I did on Monday. This despite a “humorous” birthday card I received from some in-laws which congratulated me on staying out of the obits for yet one more year.
So being fundamentally a “glass half full”, “look on the sunny side” kind of fellow, I’ve resolved to be relentlessly positive about the big 6-0. For instance:
THINGS I CAN STILL DO DESPITE MY ADVANCED AGE
• Walk - On our strolls through the Countryside Preserve, I can usually keep up with my faithful canine companion. Of course, she ages seven years for every one of mine, so it’s not really fair. I occasionally get a bit of a sore hip, but I am almost always reliably ambulatory. So that’s one for me.
• Talk - Wy wife says I mumble a bit more than I used to, but I think that’s because I am a one-person office, so I chat with myself a lot, and when I do, I don’t need to speak very loudly to make myself heard. Nevertheless, perhaps my days of reaching the back of an opera house without a microphone are over.
• Think - Not being a frequent drinker, and not being a smoker or LSD consumer at all, I would like to think I haven’t destroyed near as many brain cells as your average baby boomer. Nevertheless, the inability to come up with just the right word, or remember who played whom in what used to be my favourite movie, is starting to get mildly irritating. But as long as I can still whup most of my friends and family at the original version of Trivial Pursuit, I’m happy.
• Run My Fingers Through My Hair - Doesn’t take very long, but there you go. And it’s been white for quite some time already (almost since I arrived in Uxbridge - coincidence?), so that’s no big deal.
• Breathe - Actually, to my great surprise, considering the humid climate and all, and the fact that I’ve been living with a dog the past few years to which I’m supposed to be horribly allergic, my asthma has hardly acted up at all in recent years. Maybe it’s because I no longer work in nasty air, but in the blessed hills of Uxbridge.
• Feel my heart beat - I’ve got this thing called atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat), which was diagnosed about the same time I was commuting to Toronto (coincidence?). It essentially means that my heart dances to its own special drummer (i.e. whenever it feels like). If you were to listen up close, it might make you a bit nervous, but I don’t do that, so I’m all right. I take my blood thinners like a good boy, so when I visited my cardiologist just last week, he assured me there was no need to operate - yet. Again, I’m sure the lovely Uxbridge air gets a lot of the credit.
• Undertake domestic obligations - An increasing number of agencies keep e-mailing me offers for Viagra and Cialis and all sorts of other magic potions, but I keep delightedly deleting their e-mails. ‘Nuff said.
THINGS I HAVE AT 60 THAT I NEVER HAD AT 50
• A dog - As mentioned, I thought I was deathly allergic to four-legged furbearing creatures, and all evidence seemed to confirm it. So when my wife, in the late fall of ‘04, pointed to this photo of a border collie-like mutt up for adoption at the shelter, I thought she was crazy. I had the Messiah and a big play coming up, breathing would be good. But I let her bring the thing home, and almost six years later, she’s still here. Not the least bit allergic, even when she licks or scratches me. And I kind of like her, she and I hang out a lot.
• Being my own boss - My only experience at this previously was in show business, and it usually was less than successful either emotionally or financially. This time, I’m not only my own boss, I’m my only full-time employee. Labour negotiations are kind of fun.
• 13th wedding anniversary - And counting. Never even got to five before, not all the times I tried. Of course, I never had the perfect wife before.
• Grandchildren - ‘Nuff said. They alone make being 60 worth it in spades.
So all things considered, I’m quite excited about the big 6-0. I’m wiser. More mature (marginally). And all in all, doing swell.
