I'm Old

Last week at the YMCA, one of the gals was talking about the United States Pickleball Association. She had some literature about it and mentioned that she was trying to have the sport of pickleball accepted into the United States Senior Games. I enjoy the sport very much and am interested in the possibility of competing at the Empire State Senior Games so I asked her "How old do you have to be to play in the senior games?" She said "Fifty, how old you?" I said, "Oh, I just turned 49."

Now when she asked me when I turned fifty, my brain screamed FIFTY! FIFTY? That sounded positively ancient! Just hearing someone ask that question of ME was a jolt. When I hear the word senior I think of my parents, not me. I suffered from a few minutes of instant depression, with the thought "I'm OLD!" running through my head and then shook it off and got back to the business of playing. When I got home later that morning, I walked out to the mailbox to retrieve the mail. What do you think was waiting there for me? Yep. A letter from the AARP! Actually it was for Tom but he's 6 months younger than I am. I opened the wood stove and dropped it in.