Took last Wednesday off to get our annual physicals. I always think the office is on 15th Street. My husband Brian always knows that it’s on 17th Street. So we take a few extra minutes for my wrong turn on Valencia.

The entire day before, I’d cut down on sugar intake, avoided fatty foods and even worked out for 20 minutes, but alas, the diagnosis remained the same: old.

In my thirties, I had a fantastic doctor who was born the same year I was. When I turned 40, he prescribed medicine for high blood pressure and acid reflux. “It’s all genetics,” he told me. “You’re as healthy as I am. Take these pills every day, and I won’t need to see you for a long time. Now go skydiving.” Which I did.

And then a few years later, the pharmacy told me that my prescriptions could not be refilled: “The doctor said you needed to go in for a checkup first.”

Furious, I called his office. “Doctor K-- told me I was as healthy as he was, and that as long as I took my medicine, I was good to go.”

The receptionist coughed. “Doctor K-- passed away three years ago.”

My network then assigned me to a GP in his late twenties. He objected to the idea that the only way I could swallow my cholesterol pills was with mayonnaise, and my blood pressure medicine with espresso. Every time I got on the scale, he tsked. Finally, he said, “I don’t want to see you again until you’ve lost 10 pounds.”

I never saw him again.

Which brought me to Doctor Rodriguez, who does not judge me. He knows all of the X-Men. He didn’t comment that my weight was higher than at the last annual. He didn’t tell me to cut out salt, sugar or caffeine. He told me I was doing fine for a person who was having his last non-geriatric examination.

Wait. What? Geriatric? I knew I was post-pediatrician, but with this month comes my Beatles birthday: Will you still need me? Will you still feed me? It seems a little unfair, like I should have had the chance to grow up first.

“No diet?” I asked.

“For an almost-senior citizen, you’re pretty healthy. You can even afford an éclair once in a while.”

And since we had the rest of the day off, my husband and I decided to pick up lunch for our favorite nun.

You might not think that the Mission District is the best place to find a Jewish delicatessen, but the sign on Wise Sons said boiled bagels so I knew they had gotten it right. Brian chose the pastrami Reuben. I picked the vegetarian option, because Brian’s weight on the doctor’s scale was 20 pounds less than mine.

Sister Lillian (Lil Sistah to this readership) lives up in the clouds, under the shadow of Mount Davidson. She is the only Ursuline to live in San Francisco. We don’t see her enough, but when we do, I dish up the deli sandwiches and she dishes up the wisdom. Lunch with Sister is a lot cheaper than therapy.

As my sexagenarian status was on my mind, we talked about growing older. She reminded me that she was the exact same age as my middlest Brother X, and both of them were still going strong.

“But neither of you lives with teenagers,” I noted. Which brought the conversation to my sons, Zane and Aidan, the source of every one of my gray hairs.

“It’s a long journey, but you are never alone,” Sister Lil insisted. “Even when you think you are, we are always there, sometimes walking with you, sometimes cheering on from the side.”

“Even when we make a wrong turn?”

“Especially when you make a wrong turn. Or when Zane or Aidan goes the wrong way down a one-way street. Sometimes you’ve got to make a wrong turn to make a right turn. You talk about growing older, what you really are doing is growing wiser. You just have to admit it to yourself.”

By this time, I had polished off my rugelach. As we walked to the door, Sister handed us a box of éclairs. As if she knew. Brian and I got into the car, knowing that no matter how many detours we took, no matter how many flat tires, we always return to the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior.

Sometimes three lefts do make a right.