A few weeks ago Karen, my therapist, looked at me quizically and said, "Let me get this straight. You have half an eye, you're in constant pain, and your 60th birthday is just a few weeks away. But you can't figure out why you’re feeling a sort of malaise?”

I’d been reviewing the month since our last session, moaning about my lack of ambition and general lethargy. I recalled the years when I juggled a job, a husband, and a high-maintenance child and marveled at how much I used to accomplish in a day. Half an hour after getting home from work I had a hot meal on the table. Then I’d make lunches, oversee homework, iron shirts, balance the checkbook, and do a bit of freelance editing before bedtime. Lately, however, it seems to take so much energy to accomplish so much less. I slouched in the chair in Karen’s office, idly fiddling with one of her purple pens. “I don’t even have anything to write about for my blog this month,” I whined. It was true. I’d told myself over and over that writing takes discipline, but every time I’d start down the hall to my study, a malevolent force would repel me and I’d slink off to read a book or rearrange a drawer. I’d searched every cranny of my brain for inspiration, but my mind was like an anorexic’s refrigerator: the light came on but there was nothing to look at.

 “Half an eye” was Karen’s lurid but accurate reference to my ongoing ordeal with a vitreous hemorrhage that occurred last summer and left a large milky blob floating across the field of vision in my left eye. Constant pain was evidenced by the walking stick I’d brought that day to alleviate severe sciatica, and yes, a decade birthday looms just over the horizon. Taken together, these things made a compelling argument for malaise, but I chose instead to berate myself for being stuck in brain fog, a disgrace to the wise sisterhood of crones. “My only ambition these days is to be able to retire in five years,” I sighed, still tormenting the purple pen. “I may just have enough money to live on if I eat nothing but oatmeal for the rest of my life.”

That’s when Karen, who is clearly underpaid, leaned in and asked for clarification—her tactful rendition of “What? Are you nuts?” My 55 minutes were about up, so she closed by giving me an assignment. “Look,” she said pointedly, “you’re dealing with a lot of difficult stuff, not the least of which is turning 60. Yet you insist on beating yourself up for taking things a little slower and for having a hard time coming up with an idea for your blog. So your homework this month is to stop being so hard on yourself and just wallow! Give yourself permission to wallow in self-pity from now until two weeks after your birthday. Then you have to snap out of it and move on. I mean it—wallow for all you're worth until after your birthday. It's perfectly appropriate. And forget about the blog! Then next month we'll talk about how to be 60 years old."

I love that woman.

* * *

As a rule, I ignore my birthdays. I don’t lie to others about my age or to myself about the implications of getting older. I just don’t think my birthdays are a big deal, except when they mark a new decade, and 60 is feeling like a very big deal. Hitting 40 and even 50 didn’t faze me, but 60 is getting in amongst me, as the Brits say. For one thing, 6 is my least favorite numeral. It feels weak and squishy to me. Furthermore, in my mind numerals all have assigned colors, and 6 is orange. I hate orange. I’m looking at ten years of orange sixes, for pete’s sake.

Then there’s the matter of labels. I resist most labels for myself, but must admit that some labels help you get your bearings in the flow of time and the crush of humanity. They reassure you that “You Are Here -->.” But where exactly is 60? Late middle age? Early old age? When I was a kid, “old” started around 35, but aging Baby Boomers keep moving the goalposts in their favor. Now they say 70 is the brink of elderly and 50 is the new 40, none of which helps me figure out how to be 60. According to middleage.org, “middle age is that point in your life when you shift from seeing the future in terms of your potential and begin to see it in terms of your limitations.” Fine. But what if you’re stuck somewhere in between, regretting your limited potential and dreading your potential limitations?

As any true-blue American would do in a crisis, I turned to television for guidance. Especially the commercials, which are eager to define who you are and exactly what you need. But even there, the message aimed at my demographic was confusing. The agenda for an active senior, or whatever the hell I am, would appear to be something like this: Over morning coffee, earnestly discuss affordable life insurance premiums with a suspiciously knowledgeable neighbor, preferably from an ethnic minority. Later on, scoot downtown in my power chair to stock up on Metamucil and Aspercreme, then drop by the country club for a vigorous dance class to demonstrate that my dentures don’t slip (big toothy smile!). End the day watching the sunset from side-by-side bathtubs with a pharmaceutically enhanced male companion, being careful to wear my Life Alert pendant for when I fall and can’t get up.

Confused? Me too.

* * *

I had hoped this business of who I want to be and how to live an authentic life would be all wrapped up before I started qualifying for senior discounts, but it appears to be a lifelong endeavor. Every year I try to shed more of the irrelevant cultural norms and expectations that accrue like barnacles on the free spirit that is everyone’s birthright. In the last seven years, taking advantage of the solitude that being single again affords, I’ve made significant strides toward reconciling my outer and inner selves, taking heart in the fact that for many people I admire, age has fostered the freedom to shake off various ill-fitting roles without regard for public opinion. I look forward to exploring that opportunity for myself in the next decade, and even cherish some small hope of becoming charmingly eccentric.

As a toddler it was my habit to push aside a helping hand and stoutly declare, “Baby by-self!” There’s still a good deal of that spirit alive in me, and I wish it were all I needed to chart the way into my seventh decade. It would be so brave and adventurous, so Katherine Hepburn, to say “Screw the rules and stereotypes about getting old! I’ll do it my way and make it up as I go along.” And I’m sure I will find and express a unique 60-year-old voice, but whether it will be pure Baby by-self is open to question because, like it or not, one’s true self can never be fully embodied in a life bound by the urgent rhythms and artificial necessities imposed by society. My deepest dreams for myself as a Wild Woman in her crone years will necessarily be circumscribed, at least for some time yet, by the need to earn my keep and behave myself in public. Being a grown-up requires compromise after all, but my dread of ending up as conventional as I began is no doubt why I love reading about people who explore the extremes of existence, either breaking barriers of thought and belief or testing themselves at the edges of civilization (most recently, This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland, by Gretel Ehrlich, http://www.amazon.com/This-Cold-Heaven-Seasons-Greenland/dp/0679442006).

My son and friends need not fear that I will embarrass them by running amok, or even making headlines, in my golden years, but I do have the beginnings of a plan for remaining vital, interesting, and true to my ideals in my 60s. It bears a striking resemblance to my plan for how to be 50, but I’m confident it will evolve even as I do. Sadly (or not), my plan does not include mushing across polar ice, leading a revolution, or retreating to the life of a Druid priestess. It is extreme only in my determination to continue on the path to enlightenment at my own speed, honoring kindness as the highest good and cutting deep to the hard bone of truth.

• I will keep my mind open to new ideas and try not to believe everything I think.
•  I will give my imagination and creative spirit plenty of room to play.
• I will cherish my friends and revel in their company as often as possible.
• I will take good care of my body (I’ve already taken steps to deal with “half an eye” and sciatica), then accept inevitable changes with grace and good humor.
• I will fulfill my duty as an elder to share what I’ve learned about life as a spiritual being in a human body.
• I will hone my intuition and follow my mystical inclinations further into the wonders of existence.
• I will listen to the voice of the Divine, the power behind the natural world, the life spirit that directs us and tells us who we are.
• I will nurture spiritual growth through my Sacred Circle (http://www.bonnielcasey.com/GrowingInCircles.aspx) and daily meditation.
• I will laugh, cry, and dance under the moon to remind myself that I’m still alive.
• I will be tactful and circumspect when necessary, but bear in mind Ms. Hepburn’s delicious admonition that “if you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”

I just might amaze myself, but right now I’m going to pull the covers over my head and wallow some more. Don’t blame me—it’s homework.