Here is the first essay/blog post that will be the subject of an on-going editing dialogue. This is the first draft, untouched by human hands, as it were. Your job is to read it through and offer general comments that will guide the writer in revising. Grammar, punctuation, word choice–they are the stuff of editing. What I want you to do is look at the big picture: does the piece make sense? does it hang together? where do you get confused? what do you think is particularly well-said?  what questions would you put to the author to help her make this piece work?

Will you still love me when I’m 64?

I thought that was a Beatle’s song and I hummed along oblivious to the words having any meaning I could understand. My assumption was 64 was old and perhaps unlovable. Who knew for sure? I was 20 years old and 64 were beyond my comprehension.

At 20 life was filled with the uncertainty of the future. And uncertainly was as welcomed as a Pandora’s box filled with the wondrous and amazing promises of loving relationships that would result in marriage and fabulous careers that establish my professional self worth. At 20…that was pretty much it. I didn’t have think beyond love and a career. Health wasn’t on my radar, the depression was something my parents experienced (never going to happen to me) and terrorism wasn’t a word in my world.

In 3 weeks I will be 64. In the past 40 years, I did find the loving relationship, had 2 children and profited both financially and professionally from my career. I also found why health matters when my husband was diagnosed with terminal Cancer and like every else I discovered hard economic times didn’t end with the Great Depression and…on 911 I was within view of the collapsing towers.

I could never imagine where we are now…where I am now? At 64 life would again be filled with uncertainty that again I would be looking for a loving relationship and another career. Still trying to understand who I am and figure “it all out”. Didn’t we all think life would be secure? Our wisdom and experience would easily have us slide into home base. We would think less about the future and more about the present?

The future actually has more relevance then it did when I was younger.

It is so much closer.