It's Official

(Dante's Prayer) Please click to play

Yep, it's official. I am now fully 65. While I have been 65 since March I have, as of today, completed my "Get down and take care of the old people stuff" stuff. Yep, this morning I had my phone conversation with the Social Security office to apply for retirement benefits.

I will be 66 in March of 2009, but I can start collecting my social security checks starting in January. Where did the time go? How can I feel so young and yet I now qualify as an old person. Every time I write that kind of thing I laugh!

I know that age is just a number. I know that our lives are determined by how we feel on the inside and whether or not we keep our "spirit" alive. In fact, I love my age. I love being 65. I love all the good things that come with being this age. Gosh, I get a senior citizen's discount at Perkins restaurant and drugstores and department stores have senior citizen days which means if we can toddle on in there we can get 15% off lots of stuff we really don't need and some that we do. I love the confidence and wisdom that come with having lived life for this many years.

It was a short 15 minute phone conversation. It dealt with a significant life transition. I had been looking forward to it. It is over now and I feel oddly and happily excited and elated. Does this mean I am finally an adult? Now, that makes me laugh! Somedays I wonder what it will take to make me feel like an adult. This wasn't it!

I think I am going to be waiting and watching for a long time!