Turning 65 in the Age of Pandemic

This was a milestone birthday, in all events. But SO different than I could have imagined!

For the record, what I look like at age 65

Previous milestone birthdays have been marked with festivities. My fortieth was marked by my work friends, who decorated my office and took me away for happy hour. My fiftiest was marked with a family trip to Mexico, organized by my sister. (It was an excuse to do what we all wanted to do anyway.) My sixtieth was organized by me. I had just started running, and I made the whole family do a 5K in downtown DC that went by my office.

This was different. I signed up for Medicare, and thought about updating my medical directives and will. (More on the "getting affairs in order" another time.)

I live alone, though I have family just a block away. And more family about 8 miles away, in a trendy DC neighborhood. And yet, I celebrated alone and that was fine. My girl may have been casually exposed to a person who a couple of days later was tested and confirmed to have the virus. We decided she would not come over, and neither would her dad.

So her dad brought me a present of two big bags of potting soil for my pot farm!  We did a Wakanda salute. I took a big walk, and stopped by and saw my girl outside, from a distance, in the sunshine. Later, we did a facetime call where I played a guided meditation which we did together. We're thinking of making this a daily practice. We both want to meditate more, and accountability partners may be a good thing.

I made myself a cocktail, and feasted on a big delivery of Chinese food my girl ordered for me. We had a zoom birthday party, feeling like the Brady bunch with our four squares on the screen with our six faces. All the kids are well. And all of us are privileged so that none of us is seriously in economic jeopardy by staying home to minimize our physical jeopardy.  "Happy Birthday" was sung, without hand-washing happening.