I know, I know. It’s incongruous; my life that is. I have just begun my last week in my 60s. Next week at this time I will be the big 7-ooh! What’s incongruous, as anyone who reads this blog knows, is that the day before my 70th B’Day my son, Jack, turns 3 months old!

Now before anyone says anything nice like, “Dave, 70 is the new 50,” or some other lie, I am reminded of an incident that occurred not long after I turned 60. I was at work (remember work?) and talking about some aspect of my life and said something like, “the problem with being middle aged…” My smart-assed co-worker, Julia, interrupted me. “Dave, you’re 60. I don’t think you can call yourself middle-aged anymore.”

It annoyed me but I recognized that unless I intended to live to 120, she was right. But I felt good, I was healthy, I was getting ready to marry my then 25-year old fiancé, Janet, so why not think of myself as middle-aged?

I am FB friends with a lot of my high school classmates who have all recently or are about to turn 70. Most of them look friggin’ old and not even the best looking of them can pass for middle-aged. When I look in the mirror I look the same. The only difference is I am holding a 3 month old in my arms.

Thus the incongruity. I look old and sometimes feel it. I groan a lot in the morning; ok, truth be told I groan in the afternoon and evening too. But I get up in the middle of the night and burp the baby – and am thrilled to do it.

At this age babies change by the week. We are now in the phase where Jack talks. Every morning around 5:00 or 5:30 mom feeds him, I burp him and he is wide awake. I put him down and we talk. This typically goes for 20 or 30 minutes. I tell him what’s happening and he laughs, smiles, shouts, and spouts out baby talk. It’s a real conversation and sometimes I even think I know what he’s saying.

I take him downstairs and my knees, which still hurt from carrying my first two children, moan in pain. I actually plan on a strategy if one of the knees, you know – buckles on the steps – but I know that won’t happen. I am confident that I have enough juice left to do this one more baby and take him into toddlerhood and beyond – hopefully well beyond.

And this is of course what has changed and does worry me. I retired 5 1/2 years ago and moved to Dumaguete and we knew that everything beyond that was gravy. We’d travel, build a house and basically do whatever we wanted. But then Covid came along and whispered, “You can’t do whatever you want, MFer!” And a bout of skin cancer whispered, “See, you’re mortal. Better live it while you can.”

And now the baby has followed and I worry. ‘Will I have enough time with him?’ And more importantly, ‘Will he have enough time with me?’

But then Jack screams with laughter, and Janet looks more beautiful than ever and I realize that my 70s are gonna be my best decade yet!

PS: There’s gonna be a big party for my 70th. If you’re in the Duma area and I have mistakenly not invited you and you want to come – shoot me a message.