“I had a good time turning 60. So did all my friends. Everyone had a party. My husband’s party had a cowboy theme. We all wore jeans (his favourite mode of dress) and chowed down on gourmet chili. A friend of ours (an actual cowboy) recited a poem he’d written, an ode to life and friendship. No riding into the sunset for us. We intended to ride on forever!” Margaret Wente wrote in a Globe and Mail article posted Sunday online. Wente continued, “We went to so many 60th birthday parties that I got bored with them. I should have been more appreciative. Now that my friends are turning 65, the celebrations are few and far between. At 60, you can still pretend you’re in the middle of your life. At 65, you are officially a Senior Citizen. You can joke about it all you like, but that’s a fact. My husband turned 65 in January. ‘Would you like to have a party?’ I asked him in December. ‘Or should we blow it all on a trip to New York?’ He said he’d think about it. Eventually, I realized what he wanted was for me to shut up about it. Marketers with condos, magazines and financial services to sell have made strenuous efforts to rebrand the seventh decade of life as a sort of second blush of youth, only with silver hair and more money. The trouble is that no matter how positive your attitude, the indignities start piling up. The other day, my husband went to the drugstore. ‘You should have been here yesterday,’ the sales clerk told him. ‘It was Seniors Day. Ten per cent off.’
Read the full article here. | Raymond Matt, CFP, CLU, TEP, CHS
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