I am very fond of my three main medical people, they are all women and all trusted pals I can and do talk to. One of them is a close friend of Maria and me, another is a student in one of my writing classes, the other is close to me, and has helped me tremendously deal with my back and leg pains.
I realized today that I upset each one of them by saying, at one point or another during an examination that I was getting old. I said it in just those words and each one of them stopped me, shook a finger at me and said “don’t say that, you are not old.” They each scolded me for thinking of myself in that way and describing myself as old.
The first two times I apologized, but the third time this happened something inside of me balked. “But I am 68 years old,” I said (the third time was today), “and here I stand before you taking lots of pills, going to the pharmacy every week and alternately dealing with pain in my feet, legs, back and side. That didn’t used to happen. Is it not the truth that I am getting older?”
Each one of them sputtered and disagreed. I had the feeling that they were trying to be nice to me, each one is much younger than I am, and for all they see every day, I kept thinking: they don’t really know, do they? They are too young?
Many things in life are like that I have found. Until you stand in someone’s shoes, you just can’t really know what it feels like to be them. Older people have no trouble understanding what I am talking about.
I think the doctors and health care professionals are worried that such talk can be self-defeating, lead to an unhealthy view of oneself, which can lead to an unhealthy body and mind. That is so. But the truth is, I don’t mind being older. I like who I am and where I am. I love my life and every day of it. Why should I be ashamed of being old?
My beloved chiropractor said that 60 is the new 50, this is a Boomer way of turning the clock back, I think. I have no problem being 68, I have no problem saying I am old. But it does not define me, I have begun saying to my doctors.
I have my own boundaries about aging. I do not talk about my health, especially with older people, I do not ever squawk about young people today, I do not yearn for the good old days, I don’t need senior discounts at movies or Dunkin’ Donuts, I do not ever mention the pills I am taking, or what for. I do not care to patronized by armchair spiritualists or doctors who sometimes talk to me like I am an Archie doll.
A writer my age kept inviting me to lunch, and eager to know a writer my age around here, I accepted. He would not stop bitching about his doctors or surgeries for a minute, and the conversation veered again and again to his health, and his age. At one point, he winked at me and said, “well at our age we don’t care about sex too much do we?” Well, I said, I do care very much about sex at my age and try to have as much of it as is possible.
We don’t have lunch any more.
There is a difference to me between acknowledging where I am in life and wallowing in what I call “Old Talk.” In fact, “Old Talk” nearly killed me. When I couldn’t walk up a nearby hill, I didn’t go to the doctor, I told Maria that I was just getting old. Whenever I told a male friend about my short breath, every one of them said the same thing: “well, you’re no getting any younger,” or “at our age…” They told me about their own ailments.
Really, I thought? At our age we can’t walk up a hill without nearly fainting?
I don’t do old talk and have little patience for people who do. I avoid them, they are not only like the plague, they are a plague. In this sense, I know what the health care people are trying to tell me: don’t speak poorly of your body and life, it may be listening.
When I mention being old, they automatically hear it as a lament, because that’s what it usually is. Who, after all, is thrilled to be old?
In the Corporate Nation, the old people are mostly seen as gold mines for insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. We have vanished from the culture, we are Orwellian unpersons. We are no one’s prized demographic but the AARP. We have vanished from magazines, TV shows, and movies. Only McDonald’s will hire old people, and make them wear those tacky shirts.
When we are spoken of, it is generally in terms of our great cost to society. When we are portrayed at all, it is as drooling idiots just waiting to lose our power to think.
I am old, I like the sound of it.
I draw a line between wallowing in old age and adopting old talk. But I also want to live in my own skin. This is who I am, I love my life and am proud of it, and I will not deny who I am or where I am to anyone or hide myself from the reality of life. Being old has it’s challenges and so does being young. So does every phase of life for every human being who shares the planet with me. Challenge and struggle are not unique to any age cohort, life is complicated.
If I were not getting old I would not be at the doctors so often, and would rarely see the inside of a pharmacy. I would not be having this spirited by gentle argument with the people who care for me. People who are not old never describe themselves in that way. So being old is not a lament, it is just the truth. And standing in your truth is part of living in your skin.
I think the medical people are wrong. People getting old should be free to declare it to the world, and to show at the same time that it is no better or worse than any other time of life. It is just where we are. I have come to like who I am and where I am, and I will not again do me the disservice of hiding or denying or pretending I am someone I am not. That may be the greatest thing about being old.
