When I was 35 years old, age wasn’t something that was real to me. There were old people and then there was everyone else; I was among the latter group. It never occurred to me that I would be old someday. It wasn’t that I thought I would die young, it just that being old wasn’t going to happen.
I think of this now that, to the outside world, at the age of 71 some would consider me old. Take the news, for example, the other day, a newscaster was descripting a 71-year-old women who had been attacked in her home as “an elderly woman.” I was insulted. Why did they feel the need to put that adjective in the sentence? Why elderly? Why not just “a woman” or just “a 71-year-old woman”? Remember when Gabby Gilford was attacked by a gunman? Guess what? The gunman was stopped by a 70-year-old woman! Does that sound “elderly?”
It’s not growing old that bothers me. It’s the labels too often put on us. It’s the irrelevance by which we are too often treated. To many people, old means weak, feeble-minded, out of touch. Someone to be avoided. I remember pushing my mother in a wheelchair when she was in her 80’s. It was difficult going in and out of store doors, yet no one stopped to help. I recall thinking that if I had a baby stroller lots of people would have stopped to hold the doors and then smile at the baby. No one smiled at my mom. They acted as if she wasn’t’ there.
Like most people my age I don’t think of myself as old. I am still me, still the same inside. New ideas intrigue me, developing new interests excite me, I am interested in learning new things, keeping up with current trends and the latest political news.
Thankfully I have been blessed with a longer life than some of my friends, and I hope that I have many more years in front of me. But unlike my younger self – – and many who are now young – – I have grown to understand that the number of years on this earth does not define who I am. My actions define me.
I was a part of the baby boomers, raised in the 60’s. We shook up the world, challenged the status quo and looked for new ways to improve lives. We sat in circles with flowers in our hair and sang songs such as “We shall overcome” and “Where Have all the Flowers Gone.”
It may take me a little longer to get up off the floor, my knees aren’t as strong as they once were, and my hair may be grey, but I still hear those songs in my head. And they still challenge me. Challenge me to listen and to learn and to keep on contributing. Because, to me, the definition of “old” or “elderly” is to give up. And age doesn’t have a monopoly on that.
Growing up in Chicago in the '50's 