COLUMN: This milestone birthday is cause for reflection

Wasn’t it just yesterday I was bemoaning my 50th birthday? Now it’s 10 years later and I’m on the precipice of another milestone.

The first thought that comes to mind is that in less than a week I will be officially older than dirt. How did this happen?

Sixty sounds old but I have a hard time thinking of myself as an old woman. You’ve heard the clichés — you’re just as young as you feel ... 60 is the new 50 ... age is just a state of mind.

I wish I had some great insight about the process of aging. I think the older you get, the less you feel you have to prove yourself to others. I’m more inclined to say, “This is me, take it or leave it.” Age seems to instill that kind of security about oneself, I think.

I searched far and wide for some profound wisdom I could share about turning 60, and it turns out a lot of famous people already have weighed in on the matter. So in honor of my birthday I am sharing some of the best quotes I found about turning 60:

• “You have to stay in shape. My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 today and we don’t know where the hell she is.” — Ellen DeGeneres.

• “I’m pushing 60. That’s enough exercise for me.” — Mark Twain.

• “I’m 60 years of age. That’s 16 Celsius.” — George Carlin.

• “Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” — Jack Benny.

• “For all the advances in medicine, there is still no cure for the common birthday.” — John Glenn.

• “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln.

• “One starts to get young at the age of 60 and then it is too late.” – Pablo Picasso.

• “The years between 50 and 70 are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down.” — T.S. Eliot.

• “The spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines.” — Plato.

• “If you survive long enough, you’re revered — rather like an old building.” — Katherine Hepburn.

• “I’m turning 60, and I no longer have to be concerned about what anyone thinks of me! (You know, the old Am I doing it right? Am I saying it right? Am I being what or who I’m ‘supposed’ to be?) I’m turning 60, and I’ve earned the right to be just as I am. I’m more secure in being myself than I’ve ever been.” — Oprah Winfrey.

• “Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.” — Susan B. Anthony.

So there you have it. Most everyone, famous or not, finds a way to make peace with getting older.

Some find the humor in aging, others wax poetic.

In the end there’s nothing any of us can do to turn back the clock, so we just keep putting one foot in front of the other as time marches on. The secret is remembering it’s the quality of life, not the quantity, that really matters.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.