By Linda Shaffer
My mother is 94. I am lucky enough to talk to her daily. She tells me that she is old. Every day she makes her bed, works in her yard, does puzzles, reads her paper, watches the news and keeps herself clean, dressed appropriately, fed and watered. To me, these are accomplishments. Not everyone can do these things whether they are young or old. She tells me that I am not old because there are 18 years between us. I try to tell her that I feel old but she’s not having it. I don’t have enough years to qualify in my mom’s golden oldie club. At 76, imagine how this must make me feel.
I think I might be older than my own mother…at least based on her standards. This caused me to wonder what it really means to be old. There’s a lot of fuss about it right now because age has become a political force in a whole lot of ways. We have old laws, old politicians, old ideas and a whole lot of old people milling around trying to decide what to do with all of this. We also have a lot of old people in this country. They should be valued but I’m not sure they are. Why? Truth is, if you look and act old people will think you are. But what does that mean?
It used to be easy to get old. The minute you turned 50, you were there. AARP information arrived in your mailbox. The end. Old. My friends made jokes about coffee discounts and secretly used them. Ha! A real old person always takes a discount from any source they can get it from. We like deals. If it means volume purchases, that will happen. For example, I have become the Grandma I used to make fun of. I have been known to purchase toilet paper and tissues in quantities approaching public school status. Yes, I was able to use them before they disintegrated due to aging. With only one user in the house, I’ve had to back off my volume discount buying. A box of 100 rolls of toilet tissue is too much for someone who wears diapers at night. Ah yes…diapers, a certain sign that you’re either really young, or old. Send your adult diaper coupons here.
Old people are smart. They’ve been around. Whether they are 60 or 100 years old, they’ve learned to navigate life. This is not an easy task. Most of the ones I know are funny because they have survived a world that wasn’t always so. They found joy in places no one wanted to go. Wars they didn’t want to fight. Diseases they wished had never been shared and personal trauma they shouldn’t have had to battle. These are things which add bonus points to your years and make you older. Chronic illness makes you old. Sadness makes you old. Too many birthdays make you old. That’s why you should NEVER leave one uncelebrated. The day you were born was the day you made a difference in the lives of everyone you’ve ever known. To me, that seems like a pretty big deal. No cheating. Add all the candles to the next cake.
The Baby Boomer generation has made being old very popular. There are products and commercials and movies and clothing and everything for old people. The problem I see with that is there are way too many older Americans who don’t have an income other than basic Social Security. At something less than $900 a month, who can live on that? Most of us get by because we worked for so many years. Some of us don’t have enough to get by. We were raised in a world where you went to work every day and did all you could do. Too many of us worked without the benefit of regular social security, health insurance or retirement plans. Just another way you can tell that we’re old.
How do you know if you’re old? If you’re like me, you look in the mirror and you can see it. I’m not afraid. I do not like the cannula in my nose and the alarm hanging around my neck. I do not like the walker or cane but they enable me to do the things I do like to do. It’s a trade I will gladly make for as long as I can. You’ve got to pick your battles friends. My advice is to not fight with yourself over things you can’t control. Find the joy in your days and try to stay in contact with all the friends you have who know what it’s like to be old. You know who they are. In the end, old people know exactly who they are. You gotta love ‘em!