Month: October 2018

Happily, with a giddy heart and silly grin on my face, I am celebrating that I am 59 ½ years old today. Around, ‘round, ‘round the sun so many times, I should be dizzy. Wait, strike that last part.

The significance of 59 ½ calls back to my 20s, so let me give you the back story before you decide that this celebration doesn’t make sense.

I was an educator born to educators. My family had more than many in my hometown, but my parents were born into disadvantaged circumstances—my Dad, bless him, was born into abject poverty—and I am one of their five children. By the time I’m in my 20s, I’m a young educator still in grad school with two little kids, and I’m married to a narcissist/nutcake who tries to control me with, among other things, money. (That whole marriage and the ensuing PTSD fallout is a memoir-length story for another time.)

Here’s where I am then: I’m not making a lot of money, I’m catching Hell instead of Help from my husband, and I’m getting bombarded with all kinds of well-meaning advice from my parents, older brother, mentors, friends and CPA about how critical it is that I set up and save in one of these new-fangled I.R.A. accounts. (This is the mid-1980s, y’all.)

I’m pinched week-to-week, not buying clothes for myself, keeping expenses to a bare minimum, but I’m listening to people who know from experience and training that saving is essential. I’m listening to them, but am living the reality of “How in the cat hair can I SAVE when I don’t always have grocery money?”

So, the sales pitch for these I.R.A. accounts is that they’re low-risk, tax-sheltered investment tools that you can cash out without fines for early withdrawal after you reach 59 ½. I’m 25, living close to the bone, facing the likelihood of an expensive divorce from my domestic terrorist, and I’m trying to calculate how I can possibly save and not touch money until I’m as old as my parents. WHAT?!

Still, I find the seed money, open the account and put away whatever I can.

Well, today I’m 59 ½ years old, and I feel a sort of rapturous joy. I’ve never saved a boatload of cash in that I.R.A. or anywhere else, but my current, loving, generous, hard-working husband and I live a very comfortable life, and I have arrived at 59 ½. You’d better believe I’m celebrating today. My heart is so full.

Next year’s party when I have another zero-ending birthday at 60 will be fabulous. I’m lucky to be alive and look forward to my Sizzling 60’s. But for today, I’m struck by how marvelous life is, how I arrived here from there, how much good fortune I have been blessed to experience, and how amazing life is at 59 ½.