The first time I talked to Judith Viorst was in 1979, and she had already written “It’s Hard to be Hip Over 30” and “How Did I Get to Be 40 and Other Atrocities.”

She was a woman clearly in touch with her generation’s angst: “Why, since I’ve never had any intention of going out on the streets and selling my body, is it hard to be reaching an age where I won’t find a buyer?” she asked in her collection of verse about reaching 40.

“What am I doing with a midlife crisis?” she said then. “This morning I was 17. I have barely begun the beguine and it’s good-night ladies, already.”

Ah, but that was then.

That was during her 40s, the decade for asking questions, for making assessments such as “is my marriage worth saving?” and for considering that instead of growing old, “I’d rather grow azaleas.”

Now her latest book, “I’m Too Young to Be 70 and Other Delusions,” reached bookstores Oct. 12. And here she salutes the arrival of her sixth grandchild with this poem to her husband, Milton:

“Our number six has arrived, the last but not least. How our happiness has increased since he made his debut. And now we set the table for 14. Who knew, on that long-ago night when we first danced to ‘Begin the Beguine,’ what we were beginning!?”

Mellow, I said to her. You’ve gotten mellow. And she agreed.

“One of the biggest things is learning to count your blessings,” she tells me. “Because now you know how to handle the things that come up in life. You have a sense of proportion. I see the beauty in day to day and realize I’m lucky to be alive.”

Viorst speaks about the years “from single to 70.”

And she doesn’t spare the hard stuff. Like her 13 recent years as a hospice volunteer.

“You think this is going to make me a different person but not as much as I wished it would,” she says. “You walk out at the end of the day and say, ‘What a beautiful Earth.’ You think, ‘I will never let any small things bother me again.’ But you hardly make it across the parking lot before all the garbage of life comes crowding in.

“But I would say I’ve gotten mellower. Even my husband has gotten mellower. We never argue anymore and we were very good at arguing.”

At 70, you have a sense that time is going by, Viorst says.

“You know this day is never going to come again.”

Does this mean she’s getting old? Viorst bristles.

“Seventy certainly is not old,” she says. “I’m still so involved with life, still learning new things.”

Also, still evaluating things. Like how did a good 1950s girl who was supposed to marry well and not have to depend on a career end up having a career as a writer of books, magazine articles and children’s stories?

And how did she come to write about the first generation of women who knew sex didn’t end at 40?

And how does she know the future holds even more time to have new experiences, to laugh and to celebrate?

Because the best part of life is continuing to grow along with it, she says.

Not that she’s a good sport about the fact that all good things must end and she’s going to die one of these days.

In her new book, she writes: “Unlike a book, I can’t start again from the beginning. Unlike a video movie, I cannot rewind. The ice that is under my feet keeps on thinning and thinning. Do I mind? Do I mind? You bet your sweet ass I mind.”