Whole Life Times: The Numbers Game

June 2005 | BackWords

The Numbers Game

by Moira McMahon

By the time you read this I will be dead.

Well, almost. I’ll be mere weeks away from my 30th birthday. You’re not the only one who can’t believe this.

Last week I received a phone call from a very nice-looking 23-year-old gentleman with lovely brown eyes, whom I will now call Brownie.

"So, what are you up to tonight?" he asked.

"Me? I’m parked outside of 7-11. I’m about to go in and buy Coffeemate."

Brownie heard just one part of my answer—"mate"—before taking that pre-ask-you-out deep breath.

"I was thinking, maybe, if you want..." he stammered.

"And then I am going to go to bed," I quickly interrupted. "My 29-year-old body needs to go to sleep early on school nights." There, I thought, since you didn’t quite ask me out and I didn’t quite reject you, we can still be flirty friends. I patted myself on the back for my advanced social navigational skills—saved face, preserved relationship, a perfectly mature going-on-30 decision which...

"YOU’RE 29? You don’t look that old!"

A beat. Is that my heart breaking?

"Ah. Yeah, well, I get around pretty good with my walker." Hmm, about that friendship...

"Oh, I mean, you just look like 22 or something. But you don’t act 22. You act cool. I mean, hey look at Demi Moore and That ’70s Show guy."

Yes, Brownie, let’s look at Demi Moore. Demi Moore is 42. She married for the first time at 19 and for the second time at 25. Which makes her, despite the Ashton Kutcher arm candy, not so different from the majority of women in America who have been married at least once before age 30. In fact, the average American woman first marries at 25 (and births her first child at 26). I suppose that since I have done neither and am currently 29 and ticking, that makes me above average?

After a little Googling, I have learned I am above average. By not having a child before 30, I have an above average likelihood to develop breast cancer. I also have an above average risk of osteoporosis.

Don’t fret, I am going down in one category: fertility. Happy birthday. But dire statistics aren’t death sentences. Take my dear friend, who met the love of her life at age 30 and six months. At 32 she’s happily married. See! She beat the curve! And it was at her wedding that I was privileged to meet two women who saw 30 come and go and lived to tell the tale.

I was ducking out of dancing to "Twist and Shout" to check my lip gloss when I ran into a 60-year-old woman in beaded necklaces in front of the ladies room. Upon entry we encountered another 60-year-old woman, who, seeing her fellow sexagenarian, cried out, "Doesn’t this music just take you back?"

"I can’t believe they’re playing our music!"

The Beaded Woman smiled and introduced me to her friend. "This is my favorite architect." The architect looked as though she had designed her own features. She must have been a killer at 30, and was still the most attractive woman in our circle even now. I felt instantly endeared to her for her beauty and the intelligence that radiated from her eyes.

"We would dance to this song, oh my!"

The Beaded Woman turned to me. "You know, there was one man I turned down when I was your age," the Beaded Woman said to me, "and then when I was... free, I tried to find him."

The Female Architect’s eyes lit up. "What happened?"

"He had passed on. I missed my chance."

"How did he die?"

"Colon cancer from Agent Orange."

"Oh, that’s terrible."

"Yes, it is."

"I have to tell you there was this boy who would wait for the bus with me every morning, and I would always catch him looking at me and I hated him," the Architect countered. "He was three years younger than I was. And then one day, he went to Vietnam. He didn’t come back."

The Beaded Woman reached out her hand and the Female Architect took it. "I went to the wall in DC to touch his name. There he was, just a name, and I thought about how I hated him all those mornings waiting for the bus. He died a virgin. He never got to have sex, get married, have children, have a life."

"Iraq is just like Vietnam."

"Yes! It is! Why doesn’t anyone see that? It is Vietnam."

"We all live on the same ball. We all just have to stop fighting."

"Yes, it’s barbaric."

"Young men dying, and for what?"

"Do you have a card?"

The Beaded Woman laughed, "A card? I’m nobody. I am mother to Brian and Jenny and grandmother to seven, a retired flight attendant."

The Female Architect smiled. "You are not nobody."

They hugged, and then the Beaded Woman turned to me.

"You never know what’s going to happen. Take it where you can get it. Don’t turn it down."

Both women looked at me with eager eyes and I suddenly understood that though they had had this conversation between them, it was for my benefit. So that I wouldn’t be 60 and find that the man I’d secretly wondered about had passed away. To tell me that I am alive and have the chance for marriage, children, a love, a life. And to warn me not to turn it down when it comes my way.

While Googling away the hours I stumbled upon RealAge.com. You plug in your exercise routine, your sleeping habits, and how much potassium is in your vitamins and they compute your "real age." Mine is 26.8, and if I cut out red meat, I could get even younger.

Which got me thinking about other things I could be cutting out. Like, if I can cut out my reluctance, I might just give someone a real chance.

I might get just young enough and just hopeful enough to get married right on time.

Moira McMahon lives in Spanish speaking Koreatown while writing screenplays and television pilots. She is also known to read aloud her tales of living in LA from www.OstrichInk.com at spoken word events around Hollywood.

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