It is kind of a custom at Shail’s Nest to babble on my birthdays. Not that it has ever been a hard and fast rule. When I reached the half century mark I thought it’d be a good idea to jot down a few words (which eventually turned out to be a LOT of words!) and so went right ahead. It is no mean feat getting as far fifty. Besides I had some thoughts I needed to put out there on record, on ‘acting’ and ‘dressing’ one’s age or some such gobbledygook about which the jobless among the general public blabber. This was followed by posts on the fifty-first, fifty-fourth, fifty-fifth, fifty-sixth and fifty seventh birthdays, in the process touching on various other topics.

And here I am today to mark the fifty-ninth.

Fifty-ninth is special. It is the last one of the fifties. Fancy that! The last of the fifties. I simply cannot wrap my head around the fact that I have completed fifty-nine years on Planet Earth. From midnight tonight every step I take will actually belong to the sixties.  That’s an exciting thought. Nothing feels different, and yet everything does.

What’s interesting is in spite of the fact that Luci and I started off years, or rather, decades apart, now we are both hurtling towards ‘senior’ stage together as one. Luci is as sprightly as ever, ready to bark at intruders and run after cats. Still, she has her off days, as do I. Her gait is different, so is mine. Age is catching up, and as a result our legs seem to have developed a will of their own, not ready to implicitly obey as they used to.  But we still have loads of fun and that’s what matters.

Just a few hours back we were both screaming (technically, Luci was barking, while I was doing the screaming), and also running around wildly because we had seen a HUGE spider. I was screaming because I was scared, Luci was barking because she wanted to SAVE MOM AT ALL COSTS FROM THE SPIDER.  Inevitably, the L&M had to step in, chase us away in one direction, and chase the spider in the other. I think that was the high point of excitement this birthday (and was more than enough), apart from the litchi ice-cream that followed a special dinner.

What does the next decade hold? Only time can tell.

©Shail Mohan 2018