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    I'm Too Young To Be Seventy: And Other Delusions
    I'm Too Young To Be Seventy: And Other Delusions
    I'm Too Young To Be Seventy: And Other Delusions
    Ebook79 pages24 minutes

    I'm Too Young To Be Seventy: And Other Delusions

    By Judith Viorst

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The beloved author of Forever Fifty and Suddenly Sixty tackles the ins and outs of becoming a septuagenarian with wry good humor. Fans of Viorst’s funny, touching, and wise decades poems will love these verses filled with witty advice and reflections on marriage, milestones, and middle-aged children.

    Viorst explores, among the many other issues of this stage of life, the state of our sex lives and teeth, how we can stay married though thermostatically incompatible, and the joys of grandparenthood and shopping. Readers will nod with rueful recognition when she asks, “Am I required to think of myself as a basically shallow woman because I feel better when my hair looks good?,” when she presses a few helpful suggestions on her kids because “they may be middle aged, but they’re still my children,” and when she graciously—but not too graciously—selects her husband’s next mate in a poem deliciously subtitled “If I Should Die Before I Wake, Here’s the Wife You Next Should Take.” Though Viorst acknowledges she is definitely not a good sport about the fact that she is mortal, her poems are full of the pleasures of life right now, helping us come to terms with the passage of time, encouraging us to keep trying to fix the world, and inviting us to consider “drinking wine, making love, laughing hard, caring hard, and learning a new trick or two as part of our job description at seventy.”

    I'm Too Young to Be Seventy is a joy to read and makes a heartwarming gift for anyone who has reached or is soon to reach that—it’s not so bad after all—seventh decade.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateNov 1, 2007
    ISBN9781416588559
    I'm Too Young To Be Seventy: And Other Delusions
    Author

    Judith Viorst

    Judith Viorst is the author of the beloved Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which has sold some four million copies; the Lulu books, including Lulu and the Brontosaurus; the New York Times bestseller Necessary Losses; four musicals; and poetry for children and young adults. Her most recent books of poetry include What Are You Glad About? What Are You Mad About? and Nearing Ninety.

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    Reviews for I'm Too Young To Be Seventy

    3.5/5

    17 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Witty and wonderful!
    • 4/5
      Judith Viorst has been showing me the way forward since her "It's Hard to be Hip Over Thirty" appeared in 1968. "Too Young to Be Seventy" may not be quite as witty as some of her earlier work, and the subject matter is certainly duller. Neither am I, however, and as seventy draws ineluctably nearer, it's nice to know that there are amusing things about it. Many of the poems in this book are sweet and true, but some have a bit bitter in the sweet. Ms. Viorst has always known that we never really grow up inside, at least not to our calendar age, and it is the dissonance between the inner "me" and the outer old lady that gives this book its bite. So does the consciousness that time passes ever faster as we age, and that the toll of age grows apace. But despite a bit of sadness, I still laughed a lot while reading this, and read some of it aloud to my husband. Note: I gave this book to a widowed friend before reading it, and wished that I hadn't -- the lovely (and funny) descriptions of an old marriage could be hard for the bereaved to deal with.

    Book preview

    I'm Too Young To Be Seventy - Judith Viorst

    At Seventy

    Instead of old,

    Let us consider

    Older,

    Or maybe oldish,

    Or something, anything,

    That isn’t always dressed

    In sensible shoes

    And fading underwear.

    Besides which,

    Seventy isn’t old.

    Ninety is old.

    And though eighty

    Is probably old,

    We needn’t decide that

    Until we get there.

    In the meantime

    Let us consider

    Drinking wine,

    Making love,

    Laughing hard,

    Caring hard,

    And learning a new trick or two

    As part of our job description

    At seventy.

    Erotic Options

    I’ve never greeted my husband at the door

    Naked except for a necklace and high-heeled shoes.

    I’ve never, when offered adulterous amour,

    Found it especially difficult to refuse.

    I’ve never made mad love on my kitchen floor,

    Or slept with some nameless stranger on a cruise.

    I’ve never considered having any more

    Than a total of two in bed. How would I choose?

    I’ve never attempted anything hard core

    With ice cubes, or whips, or cranberry-orange juice.

    I’ve never played Teacher or Nurse or Belle de Jour,

    Or pursued a Havana cigar’s alternative use.

    I’ve never felt strongly prompted to explore

    Other erotic options. A monkey? A moose?

    But if, in my eighties, sex starts becoming a bore,

    I fully intend to consider letting loose.

    Teeth

    Though I brush twice a day and am deeply committed to flossing,

    I’m finding that I, and that most of the people I know,

    Now require not only a regular family dentist,

    But also two dontists—one endo and one perio.

    At costs far surpassing our annual mortgage payments,

    In states of mind ranging from panic to weak in the knees,

    I’ve acquired

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