You're Old

A tiny little person with whom I was having a chat recently declared, "You're old."  At first, I thought she was looking at someone else as she said it, but I quickly realized that she meant me.  You know you've crossed the bridge into adulthood when a five-year-old, with conviction, determines that you are old.  Her slightly older brother then asked me if I was 90.  He admitted to wanting to live to be over 1,000 years old.  I recall being their age and thinking that anyone over 25 was "old" (50 years of age was downright ancient), but it was astounding to realize that I was now at that tender age to be among the oldsters myself.  Then, I thought about the many illnesses I have experienced in my adulthood, illnesses that could have ended or at least altered the quality of my life.  There were many times when I sincerely wondered if I would get to the point when I would consider myself old.  So, I chuckled at the little cherub's honest observation and decided that I had blissfully arrived after all.