A sissy's approach to getting older

Some of these old folks are feisty! 

“Feisty” is the only f-word I’m allowed to spell out in this family publication, but let me tell you – if you ask a person at the upper end of the actuarial table what it’s like to get older – step back!  Because she will answer!  And, it turns out, one of the salient qualities of the senior set is that they have shed their inhibitions and donned their daring.  I love that!

Just to cut to the chase, consider Madonna.  I wasn’t a big fan of hers until I read what she said to Nightline six years ago about approaching the half-century mark:  "Yeah, f*** you, I'm 50.  That's what I'm going to say when I turn 50."

OK, you’re right.  I hardly consider 50 to be old, but I appreciate her bold spirit!  At the same time, I admit I’m pretty tame in contrast.  

Still, I kinda wanna be like that! 

But gosh darn it!  There’s so little a person can do between going all ‘Madonna’ - chest   bumping Old Age and shouting in its face – or meekly inviting it in – aging “gracefully.” 

To me that’s the same thing as surrender.  I don’t want to give up being cool!

So I say ‘no!’   

I know.  I talk a big brash game, but in the execution, I revert to diplomacy.  And clearly, Old Age is about as susceptible to diplomacy as ISIS.

Therein lies the dilemma.  A person like Madonna can express the rage that comes with the daily realization that time is not just slip, slip, slippin’ into the future; it’s downhill racing.  Time is screaming and careening around the track toward the checkered flag.  

What is a mild-mannered ‘fraidy cat supposed to do?

I figured I’d better get busy and figure out how to deal with this aging thing.  So what if I’m about a decade slow on the uptake?

I went to my loving husband first.  “Honey,” I said, evincing the timidity I felt both at broaching the topic and at facing the inevitability.  “I don’t know how to get older.”

“Well you’re doing it!” he said.

Ah.  OK then.  Let’s see.  Maybe I should study some role models for aging; they will show me the way to forward progress without loss of cache. 

Just look around and ask the question, “Who do you know who’s getting older while retaining that certain je ne sais quoi?” 

(I looked it up:  In French it’s literally, “I don’t know what:” An intangible quality that makes something distinctive or attractive.  You know – cool.)

A few folks leapt to mind:

First I thought of Mork.  As you recall, he got to go backwards.  That’s the dream:  As we get older, we get younger!  Alas, it’s fiction.  Not a good example.

Next, inexplicably, I thought of Keith Richards.  He’s defiant; and so far as I know he never gets in anyone’s face like a certain Material Girl does.  But, but…  Well, I hate to succumb to vanity, but I don’t want to end up looking like a smokin’ zombie either!  (Sorry Keith!  You are still very cool.)

Maya Angelou!  Now we’re getting somewhere!  Could I please mature into her kind of patience?  I want that same steady gaze of experience and wisdom. 

Mahatma Gandhi!  He was a courageous old guy.  And, that wardrobe!

What about Dolly Parton?  I love her approach to getting older:  “I will never retire unless I have to.  As long as I'm able to get up in the morning, get that makeup on and my high heels on … I'm going to do like Mae West; I'm going to sit in a wheelchair with my high heels on.”

I wouldn’t mind being like Dolly except for the likelihood that we would both end up like Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”  Uncool.

Bette’s the one credited with saying, “Old age ain't no place for sissies.”

That quote used to scare me, maybe because I am pretty wimpy.  But now, since I’m doing it, I only feel scared some of the time. 

Other times, I get that I can grow older and retain my awesomeness. 

OK, got it!  Helen Mirren!  Eh?  Right?!


Yeah.  Helen Mirren!

Peter Pan lied!

Let me just say what a swift kick in the britches it is be as old as I am and still such a complete and utter work in progress.  

I may even be getting worse.   

What are the hallmarks of maturity, anyway?  How can you tell you’re grown up? 

That’s right.  I have to ask.  I don’t just know, like, automatically.  (Maybe I’ve spent too much time with teenagers.) 

So, in my saga of self-improvement I’m developing a checklist.  Here we go: 

Age.  Sure, if you’re the literal type.  And I can be.  So of course, age is one facet of maturity.  The concept applies to cheese and to people.  So, check!  Like a succulent Gouda, I have aged. 

My mom used to say that a grownup can carry money without spending it.  Oh hooray.  I’m a big girl now. 

Ripeness.  OK…this could be delicate.  Ripeness implies reaching the fullness of one’s potential.   

Part of me wants to believe I’m still rising in this regard.  Still on the upswing.  In this roller coaster ride of life, I’m still grinning in wild anticipation of what’s to come.  Gravity pulls me back in my seat as I look at the sky and the car ticks its way up the steep, steep grade toward the peak of ripeness - that moment of weightless glee at the top. 

But another part, or perhaps I should say parts, of me must acknowledge that I may have crested the summit a while back when I wasn’t paying attention.  Maybe I missed my peak experience.  Or, maybe, in the continuum of peaks, mine was a middling one, unremarkable in contrast with the surrounding Himalayas.   

Ripeness for me could very well be in the rearview mirror.  Come to think of it, 35 was a excellent year.   

Yep, I may be overripe.  In the vernacular of food preservatives, I could be going bad.   

Uh oh.  That actually explains some things. 

For example:  Some evidence indicates that I’m edging my way down the slope of wisdom, having spent too little time at the pinnacle soaking things in, as it were.  I’m less wise, which is as we know, a gentle way of saying I’m dumber than I used to be.   

This may be an unintended consequence of holding a know-it-all job for so many years.  Whether I ever actually knew anything is subject to debate, but in the role of principal, pretty much everyone treated me as if I possessed oracle-like abilities, especially when they wanted to pass off their freshly created debacle.  Or, folks shuddered in disbelief when I didn’t know the particular thing they thought I should know; the classic case of a lose-loser situation.  

As you can no doubt see, holding such a job for any length of time has the effect of creating a crackpot.  The only difference is now that I’m retired, no one listens to me!  Back in the day when I spouted off, it meant something.  Today, pfffft! 

Yet I’m still cracking wise…Is that maturity, or immaturity?  I prefer to think of it as freedom, but again, no one cares what I think.  It’s an extremely frustrating conundrum.  

I’m less adept on so many levels these days.  Once noted for my poise and serenity in dicey situations (run with me on this), I’ve become fretful and inept.  If I could just stop blurting.  It’s not cute anymore.  Apparently.   

Even as a child I somehow knew the right thing to say and when to say it.  My elders nicknamed me the “Diplomat.”  But those days of respect and elevated status are long gone.  Now at reunions, when my cousins see me coming, they sort of squint and turn their faces to the side, like you do when you hear a first grader playing the violin.   

Remember Mork from Ork?  He arrived on earth as an adult.  And as time passed, he got younger and younger.  The subtext of the script was that children are smarter than adults are.  We should all strive to be more childlike.  Robin Williams has made a good living doing just that. 

But outside of Hollywood, maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.