(Marianne’s Instagram post on her 70th birthday)

I took turning 50 very hard. I couldn’t believe my youth was irrevocably over. I do remember my friend Tara telling me that 50 is the age past which you don’t care what other people think anymore, and she was right. So that part was good. It was hard for me to make peace with turning 50, but then, just as friends had told me it would happen, on that day something broke and I was fine with it.

With 60 I felt an increase in power but also the sense that in some way it was time to start cleaning up the campsite.

70 is big. Somebody said to me in the last couple of days, I don’t remember who, something about it seeming regal. It does feel regal in a way, although heavy as well. Deep. Important. You don’t turn 70 and just assume there will be another zero year. You don’t say, “oh I wonder what I’ll be doing for my 80th” the way you say at 30, “oh I wonder what I’ll be doing for my 40th.” Of course you never know if you’ll turn 40 just as you never know if you’ll turn 80 — but the chances are what the chances are.

For those of you turning 50, I wrote a book called The Age of Miracles about that transition, if it would be of interest to you.

As far as turning 70 is concerned, I feel everything until now has been a rehearsal. Decades ago an old woman I knew said to me, “I’ll tell you what the best age is, do you want me to tell you?” I said yes, thinking it was probably going to be 35 or 40 or something. She said, “75! You’re finally old enough to know what you’re doing and still young enough to do it.”

For decades I laughed at that story. I thought it was so funny. I still think it’s amusing but for a very different reason. I think I now understand what she meant…