Sexagenarian

Soon I will be a sexagenarian. I think this requires that I get a faux ivory figurine of Death blowing bubbles with the legend “Momento Mori.” When I entered the cohort of pentagenarians, it was much easier to pretend that I was still forty-something—and in any case, I still had half a lifetime in front of me to write and create and be generally crafty. Now The Great Transformer feels much larger on a horizon that seems much closer. And the ancient Egyptian impulse to have spoken prayers for the spirit of So-and-so is more relatable. I suppose I will also need to get a faux ivory figurine of Ozymandius.

So far about the only thing that about reaching the milestone of sexagenarian is that I am looking forward to is being able to work the phrase “putting the sex back into sexagenarian!” into conversations. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that I will age better than repeatedly saying “putting the sex back into sexagenarian” will. And I’m not sure how well the phrase will play in a decade when I am no longer a sexagenarian: “putting the sex back into septuagenarian” just doesn’t have the same ring and “putting the septum back” sounds unappetizingly medical. I suppose I will have to quote Calvin and Hobbes and say, “You can take the tiger out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the tiger. / The question is ‘can you put the tiger back into the jungle?’”

I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there, somewhere.