Will you still need me, will you still feed me…(?)

My 64th birthday is tomorrow. Yup. That’s right. May 14th marks my 64th trip around the sun, and Paul McCartney’s song has been ear-worming through me for months as if in preparation. It’s a happy little tune. For the most part, I’ve been whistling along as it loops through my head. Then I got to wondering if there was a deeper meaning, a warning perhaps about losing my hair, so I looked up the rest of the lyrics. 

Wikipedia reports that the song that first came out on the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s album in May 1967 (when I was 9) was written by Paul when he was a mere lad of 14. The guy’s genius is mind-blowing, I swear. Not for one minute did I consider being a senior citizen when I was a teen. Old age was for grandparents. They wore fedoras and pillbox hats with tiny net veils. My grandmother had violet tinted hair, always carried a pocketbook on her forearm like Queen Elizabeth, and wore gloves in all seasons. My grandfather wore suspenders and a vest with a pocket watch. They both kept their teeth in water glasses beside their separate beds. Old wasn’t something they had become, it was who they always were. It never dawned on me that I’d be old one day too.

Honestly, it was iffy during my wayward youth as to whether I’d even live to see thirty. But, as the fates would have it, I did slow my roll; then the years rolled by, and now I stand on the brink of Medicare. That’s good news for the most part. I have my own teeth, and due to some crazy genes on my mother’s side, I only have a sprinkling of grey hair that I camouflage with blond highlights. Overall, my generation is not a dowdy lot. We’ve stayed fairly fit, we still wear blue jeans and wave updated freak flags. So, I am mostly grateful for the opportunity to reach a ripe old age.

However, truth be told, I do struggle with wrinkles. Those fine lines like stitches around a rag doll’s mouth in which my lipstick bleeds, the ripples in my forehead, the furrows between my brows. Then there are all the effects of gravity: the roll around my hips, my waddle, and jowls. Plus, I am not keen on involuntary gastric action, creaky joints, and dry eye.

What I am super grateful for though is an internal calm which apparently was the tradeoff for the loss of external pulchritude. Since the cessation of my moon cycles some time ago which quieted hormonal tides, I’m no longer suicidal or homicidal. I tend to be happy. If I stay away from mirrors, do gentle yoga stretches daily, and keep eyedrops handy, I’m somewhat blissful most of the time. With all that fertile tension gone, a different sort of creativity has blossomed that is less about survival of the species and more about legacy. 

I had a vision recently in which I saw myself as a compost heap. It was as though all the experiences, challenges, lessons, and accomplishments from my days in Earth school had decomposed into a rich humus that was now feeding my soul and, hopefully, nourishing others. 

At 14 years of age in the height of puberty, Paul could not have possibly known that the questions change. At least my codependency has lessened some. I’m not as interested in whether someone else will need me and feed me. In the final third of this lifetime, I am asking myself what do I need? What truly feeds me? And, therefore, what is my authentic contribution to the human symphony? I will attempt to blow out the massive amount of candles on my birthday cake, and hope to find out.