On the one hand, it seems eons since Susie and I
were catching grasshoppers in my mother’s marigolds,
Dixie cups and crinolines bouncing in the breeze.
On the other hand, it seems just yesterday Susie swept
into our tenth high school reunion, regal in royal blue,
light years removed from the Quickdraw McGraw sketches
she parlayed into a glamorous career in design.

Odd I can’t remember the names of guys I thought I was in love with
in college, yet I vividly recall the day in first grade when Mark Hayman
cackled as I got a spanking. (He got one, then—touché!)
All those afternoons sipping cherry Cokes in Beeson’s Drug Store . . .
all those evenings circling Knight’s drive-in and dragging Main . . .
Oh, Mighty Mouse! Oh, Monkees! Oh, when did Reader’s Digest
get more interesting than Tiger Beat?

We’re not old. We can’t be. Old is dull. Old is decrepit. Old is
boring—or was, before Boomers. Now old is Sketchers and
scooters and iPads and iPhones and discounts and 401Ks.
Is getting older daunting because scenarios from “In the Year 2525”
grow more realistic every day? Depressing because,
despite Oil of Olay and Botox and Viagra and Vitamin E,
we still can’t party all night and perform the next day like we used to?
           
We’re healthier, hipper, and, because life expectancy continues to increase,
we aren’t really that old, but we are still sixty-five.
Egads.

    
© by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer.
Used with the author's permission.