Age is but a number for me, a very, very high number

There are few epiphanic moments in one’s life for a reason — if they were more commonplace, they wouldn’t be as powerful.

They usually follow along the predictable major life moments: when you finally strike out on your own after college, when you get married, when you have children. Or, in my case this weekend, when I realized I am old.

I attended an event at my alma mater this past weekend. My adviser, who came into the job when I was a college junior, is retiring. As a surprise for his retirement party, several of the school’s top graduates came back to help him celebrate his academic career.

I’m not sure when the geriatric feeling started coming over me. Maybe it was when I rolled into town in my sweet minivan and, as I passed the fraternities and sororities, students started yelling at me directions to the local Wal-Mart.

Or perhaps it was when the students who succeeded my time at school starting making the pre-event drinking plans and the post-event drinking plans before we even had the event plan in place.

Maybe it was the moment last week when I realized I will be well past 50 when my son graduates from high school.

Or it could have been when I thought I woke up with dirt on my face the other day and all it really turned out to be was chin whiskers.

Maybe it’s the cultural references I make at work and anything pre-1985 is treated as practically prehistoric.

Or when I find myself looking at the plastic rain hat my grandmother used and thinking that it’s a brilliant idea for me to try. Hey, I could rock it. Sort of.

Sure I’m only 35 and I have every reason to think I have just as many years left, but it’s a sobering thought when you process the fact that you put more value on nightly sleep and vitamins versus changing the world and achieving ideals.

If anyone has any advice as to how to keep that “youthful spirit” alive, I’m all ears. Yesterday, I was looking at doilies and thought they would be great in my living room. I need help — fast.

— Sarah Leach is content editor at The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at (616) 546-4278 or sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com.