Last week, while being put through some preliminary test at the eye doctor’s, the technician asked me my age and I completely forgot how old I am. I said “47? 46? I think I am 46.” That was my final answer. I went on with the rest of my appointment, reading tiny letters and answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to better or worse, lens 1 or lens 2. My left eye has been irritated and goopy off and on for about year. I chalked it up to allergies and sinus drainage. Turns out it wasn’t allergies, but a scratched cornea. I got my prescription for a steroid eye drop and went home. Then I asked Michael how old I was.

Y’all…I’m 44.

I have a pin number for my bank card, a different pin number I have to remember to use my library card, yet another pin number I have to use when I log time for teaching a yoga class. I have to remember many different combinations of numbers in order to navigate every day life. I obviously have not made it a priority to commit to memory the number of years I have been living on this planet. I am some number of years of age. Apparently that some is at times older than reality. So be it. My friend Sarah suggested that I just start telling people I’m 60 and see if I get offered discounts and compliments. I am seriously considering this strategy. Sixty is a nice round easy number to remember and I have to tell you that the more time I spend as a home owner, the more appealing those retirement communities look. I would move in one today if they’d let me.

Do you remember when you were so proud of the number of years you have been on the planet that you not only kept track of the year, but the months as well? You would happily chirp “I’m nine and three months!” or defiantly declare “I’m sixteen and a half!” as if the half really mattered. Those were the years when you thought that the number really truly mattered. At some point the importance of that number shifts. You start clinging to the years you thought were important because you realize you are creeping into a category of years where you will be invisible. Our attention spans are short. We place a lot of value and advertising space for the really young or the really old. We only want to read the first and last chapters. Those middle chapters are just filler. I am in those middle chapters. The advertisements that show up in my inbox are either geared for a woman ten years younger than I am or ten years older. I will admit that recently, more and more of those ads are geared for an older woman.

So you can see that it would be easy for me to think of myself as older.

The thing about the invisible years is that you get to be all of the ages and no one cares. Some times I’m ten years old, giddily tossing fireworks into a cart. I’ve been known to randomly do a cartwheel for no other reason than to make sure that I can still do a cartwheel. Then there are times I’m eighty and it takes me a second to stand up straight after sitting for a certain amount of time. I’m up at five in the morning, ready to start my day. Age is just a unit of time and time is relative. Is this just some philosophy I made up to make myself feel better about aging? Of course it is. But at the same time, I don’t know why I should feel bad about aging. I don’t feel the need to cling to my youth. A commercial just came on asking the question “Who has time for wrinkles?” I counter that with “who wants to waste time thinking about wrinkles?” I’ve got cartwheels to do and fireworks to set off. I’ve got a mug of coffee to drink while bird watching in my back yard.

These are the things that make me forget my actual age. At least this is what I tell myself to keep me from worrying that it is really dementia making me forget.