The ticket-seller at the movie today asked for $7. I thought $7 was strangely low, but I figured that might be the matinee price. Nope, it wasn’t. As I walked to the theater, I took a closer look at my ticket. She had charged me the senior price. Ack.

“Think of it this way,” my son said when I told him about it later, “you saved $3.”

Vanity, thy name is Mary Ann de Stefano. Even though every penny counts these days, I would have rather paid full price, or even be over-charged, than have an anonymous ticket-seller think I am older than I am. How pathetic is that?

Ironically, one theme of the movie I saw that day, Elegy, is senescence.

Lately, I’ve had this thought: my life is over. It’s not something I dwell on, or even believe. But the thought rather sharply passes through my mind these days with scary frequency. Friends who are somewhat older than I am (or was?) told me in the past they’ve had that same thought. I always brushed it away, called them silly, and reminded them how young they are yet. But now I know how they felt.

I’m not much different than anyone else when it comes to worries about age. In my adolescence, I thought I was immortal. In my twenties and thirties, I couldn’t see the horizon as my whole life spread before me. In my forties, when my father died, I had the stark realization that my time on earth was limited, too, and the pressure was on to be clearer about the path I wanted my life to take. The horizon came into view.

Now, the horizon is closer than ever. When I shared the my-life-is-over feeling with a friend, she understood what I meant. And she didn’t brush it off as silly. But she did say, “Be careful about that. Because it’s a choice.”

Right. A choice.

So here is my choice.  I’m am going to make it all about age and time as I hurtle towards sixty, but only to heighten my awareness of impermanence. I’m not going to fall into the my-life-is-over trap, but I am going to use that feeling like a nudge to cultivate mindfulness and the pleasure of the moment. I’ll use it to remind myself it matters not how much time I have, or where I will be in the future. What matters most, what always matters most, is what I am doing now, at this very moment. The moment is always young, always abundant.