a brand new day
September 23, 2011 (Friday)
If I live through the night, when I wake up Saturday morning I will be an "Octogenarian." Wow. That word describes a person who is 80-89 years of age. Without realizing it, I have been several kinds of "..arians." I was a pre-denarian (0-9) before I was a denarian (10-19), then a vicenarian (20-29), after that a tricenarian (30-39), followed by being a quadragenarian (40-49), after which I was a quinquagenarian (50-59), a sexagenarian (60-69), and a septuagenarian (70-79). If the Lord wills, some day I may be a nonagenarian (90-99), or maybe even a centenarian (100+). (Of course, I had to look up all that stuff; I had not heard most of those words, ever).
I am fond of saying, "When I was a boy," and I seem to say it a lot lately, more every day in fact. When I was a boy, I used to say, "When I get old some day." Well, "some day" is "now." Problem is, I don't remember the rest of what I said back then about what I was going to do once I finally got old.
I'm sure I should be sharing my wisdom that's supposed to come with age, but right now I'm just trying to adjust to the idea of being an "octogenarian." So far, I feel just about like I did when I woke up on my 21st birthday, fully expecting to feel different. I didn't. It was just another day. I think waking up on one's 80th birthday makes a person feel about the same. One thing seems different: it took a long time to reach 21, but it hasn't taken very long to reach 80.
As Minnie Pearl used to say, "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E! I'm jes' so proud to be here!" I'm thankful to have lived through what in many ways may have been the most exciting 80 years of this world's history.