My husband turned 60 this past week, which just seems so inconsiderate. I did not see this coming when I fell for him in our late 20s. Certainly I knew he - we - would age. But knowing it and doing it are two vastly different experiences.
It's like when you are little and people ask what you want to be when you grow up, and you say, "A veterinarian!" You think you are picturing your 20-something-year-old self in a white lab coat with a stethoscope draped jauntily around your neck. But what you are really picturing is yourself exactly as you are, decked out in your favorite little blue and white suspender shorts (the ones with the strap that once fell into the toilet at a restaurant, leaving you horrified but with no choice but to buckle them back up, resulting in a wet, smelly circle on your chest), saving an animal in some indistinct yet heroic way, then returning home to build an interlocking tunnel of model horse stalls under your desk with your Partridge Family record albums.
Very few of us, when we are young, have a clear view of what aging will actually be like. And by young, I mean anywhere from zero to yesterday. Every day, the fact of my aging face and body is a surprise, and although I sometimes try to prepare myself for what's to come ("See that 80-year-old over there," I will say to myself. "One day that will be you!") the only thing becoming clear is that aging - like success, like contentment, like the moment you finally buy a car based on value rather than looks - is a moving target.
In honor of my husband turning 60, I did the only thing I could think of: Nothing. It was an odd way to celebrate, especially for someone like me who relishes thinking about perfect gifts for people I barely know, then procuring and giving them. The problem seemed to be that there is not a single thing my husband and I want for that we do not buy ourselves.
The other problem was that I did not want to mark this historic event with something that might make it seem like it was a good thing. My mother used to mourn my birthdays, saying they made her feel older. I used to think this was rather self-focused and that it put a damper on my celebration. Now that I'm older, I see that I was right, but it's OK that I do it, because, perhaps even more so than my mother, I do not appreciate people in my inner circle getting older willy-nilly.
To be completely honest, I did do a few things for my husband's 60th birthday. For example, I worked out. I did some research for an article I'm writing. I did laundry, ate some Popsicles and took the dogs for a walk. I also looked online for gift ideas, and though I actually had several good ones, I talked myself out of them. No gift seemed monumental enough to express the negative feelings I had about his aging. It's hard to find a gift that says, "Let's not do this again, OK?"
But in case you're thinking my husband got no attention for his birthday, rest assured, he did. There were multiple dinners with friends and family in his honor. Plenty of wine, Oaxacan mescal and some very good scotch were consumed (not all on the same night). We had an in-depth conversation about how cute and special our dogs are. We went to a thrift store, where he sat in the car and answered email (his happy place). We talked about having a big party sometime in the fall, when the unthinkable will happen, and I will turn 60. We even talked about taking a trip to Japan.
There's something positive to be said for aging, I know. "Consider the alternative!" is something people love to say, but, like that little girl in the pee-soaked suspenders trying to imagine herself in clean clothes practicing medicine, that's all but impossible. Can I really consider what it will feel like to be dead, and when I am dead, will my thoughts be that I wish I'd appreciated the alternative more? Or will I just be, you know, dead? I think you see what I'm getting at.
Nevertheless, with all the angst around what it feels like to be heading into the unknowable years ahead, I am happy to be going there with the guy I fell for in my 20s. In every way but this, he has never, ever let me down.
Dana Shavin is an award-winning humor columnist and travel writer and the author of "The Body Tourist," a memoir about recovery. Email her at dana@danashavin.com, follow her on Facebook at Dana Shavin Writes and see more at Danashavin.com.
Dana Shavin / Contributed photo