As of today I am “elderly,” a “senior citizen.”  I get to order from the senior menu at the IHOP, and qualify for discounts every where.  I’m wondering how this happened.  Did I pass through an invisible gate or doorway into this magical land of being an old person?  I don’t look different.  I don’t feel different.  I don’t feel young anymore, but I’m not ready to be considered “old” either.  What determines old?  A date on a calendar?  Which one?  There have been so many over the centuries.  In 1957, the year I was born, the average life expectancy for a woman was 72.7 years, nearly twenty years older than I am now.  In 2012 that number is 81.73, if you’re healthy nearly ten years longer.  I’m anything but and I’ve already lived longer than many diabetic women.  My heart is clean and healthy despite a cholesterol rate that would kill a lion.  If it weren’t for my flaky joints and regular bouts of heartburn I would say “I’m not old!”  I come from a long lived family.  Illnesses took my grandmothers in their mid eighties, but my great-aunt was 96 and her brother was 93.  My mother was 90 when she passed, my father was 82.  I’ve lived a lot in my 55 years.  I’ve lived in over 30 different places in five different states.  I’ve made and lost track of a lot of friends.  Some of them I’ve considered family.  I guess I’ll spend however many years I have left trying to squeeze a little more life into them, no matter how hard it is.