I am Turning 62 Today

Field Notes

Charlene Wheeless

On Choosing Expansion

I Am Turning 62 Today

I am turning 62 today. I have more days behind me than ahead of me. And I have never once felt more alive.

I know that is not what you expect to hear. Society has a very clear script for 62. Slow down. Step back. Start wrapping things up.

I am currently learning pole dancing. We are not following the script.

Here is what I want to say about aging that nobody says out loud. The number is not the problem. The story you attach to it is.

I do not lie about my age. Never have. I have earned every single one of these 62 years and I am not giving one back.

The cancer. The surgeries. The daughters I raised. The ones I built from scratch. The rooms I fought to get into. The love I chose on the first date and chose again every day after.

All of it is in this number. Why would I hide that?

My only job at 62 is the same job it has always been. Refuse to be too old for anything.

Show up fully. Lead honestly. Take the pole dancing class even when everyone else in it is half your age. Especially then.

Here is what I know after six decades of living out loud. The people who shrink with age made that choice long before the number arrived. And the people who expand with it made that choice too.

Choose expansion. Every single year.

Thank you to everyone who has walked any part of this journey with me. The best is absolutely still ahead.

Choose well,

C.