When do you get Old?

 

My mind wanders during class. It wanders what my classmates are thinking about me when they look at

me, with my gray hair and wrinkled face as I sit in this zoom session. I’m at least 20 – 40 years older than anybody else. I imagine their thinking that I have nothing to say. I imagine that they’re thinking I’m going to write something that’s going to bore them, I’m thinking that I won’t be relevant to them. I imagine their jumping to conclusions just by seeing how old I am.

I think this because I get these kinds of negative stereo types about aging projected on me all the time. According to Sarah Barber of the Georgia State University people who are stigmatized—whether due to race, socioeconomic status or age—perform more poorly when they are faced with negative stereotypes. She found expectations of others can play a powerful role in how well older adults perform on cognitive tasks and motor skills such as driving. She believes that “Those who have positive attitudes about aging live longer, have better memory function and recover more easily from illnesses.”

Fighting the stigmatism on aging is a daily practice for me. It used to be sexism but that has taken a back seat to agism. I also turn this fight inwards. My aching joints are just part of my day. I have to admit that aging has slowed me down but the old wife’s tale that aging makes you less productive hasn’t been true. I’ve had an internship at the Counsel on American Islamic Relations; I study Human Rights in Thailand; I had a short memoir piece published in a book of memoir pieces; I have had a feature article published in the Dhaka News. I continue physical exercise. All of this since I retired at age 66.

I sound defensive and I am. Some of this is to convince you that not all old people stay at home; sit around waiting. I get defensive to convince myself too. I want to convince myself that I can keep my body from aging; keep my thinking contemporary; and keep me poised in the game of live. On my better days I think people stare at me and see the old person they’re going to be. They stare at me and worry about the time when their youth will have slipped away. I would tell them, that it will happen slowly. Then one day you will look in the mirror and you will think your best days are gone. This dichotomy of perception versus reality helps me plunge into life like I’ve always dreamed in retirement.

After I get defensive, I recover and turn away from the people that tell me I’m too old. I’ve learned to turn to physical activities to forget my own aging. One place I turn to is the wind.  Riding my windsurfer, I fly through the water to a place of agelessness. You see the wind never sees my wrinkles, doesn’t notice I have gray hair, nor hears the beat of my aging heart. The wind just blows to meet me just like it would any other person.

Riding the wind reinforces that I’m not too old for adventure. I crave these times. Yet my positive image here is fragile. It can easily melt away when I walk into a bike shop and they tell me I want a comfort bike. They don’t realize that someone who looks like me could have ever toured all over the world, worked in a bike shop, taught bike mechanics.  I muster up the courage to fire back and tell them exactly what I want. The conversation changes then and they treat me like I know what I’m talking about. Even at age 73 I bicycle 15 to 20 miles regularly, I’ve toured Italy. And this is just part of my story of aging.

In the eyes of the people I’m talking about I’m already old, old enough to be laid out to pasture. People like my father-in-law who told me, “People your age shouldn’t be doing things like going out for a 20-mile bike ride.” I turned to him and asked why not. He told me old women shouldn’t be doing things like that. Then I turned away from him and said, “I will never stop riding my bicycle.” Sometimes I turn to look at the person in the eye and fight straight on.

Shortly after my father-in-law made this comment, I asked a friend of mine in his eighties when does being old start, “I don’t know but I’ll let you know when it does,” he replied. I thought about this and realized one has to take control of when old begins for themselves. People’s perception of me and my gray hair and wrinkles shouldn’t influence when I grow old.

Sometimes, the good times, I fight back with sarcasm. Like when I’m standing on crowded bus after a long bicycle ride and a young man says “Here have a seat.” This is when I look them in the eye and say, “Thank you I am kind of tired from bicycling 18 miles.” This is how I fight back when I’m feeling bold, feeling like I can do anything. I love the look of shock on peoples’ faces around me. People who look at me in disbelieve that an old person who they perceive to be weak and frail could bicycle at all because they might break a hip, have a heart attack, or just plain can’t do it.

I want people to ignore my gray hair. I want them to see me as an active alert person. Not the person who rides a comfort bike, not the person who sits at home and knits not the person who has already checked out from life. I read recently that older adults are anchored in the past; that youth are looking ahead at the future. My pass spans seven decades. My future if I’m lucky is one decade. There’s a lot more to think about in the past seven decades than the decade ahead. Instead of thinking about the decade ahead, I dream up what to do today, or next week or in a month from now. There is no long-range plan. The good side of this is that there are no standards, no regulations to follow,  just the moment.

I might get a look or two or even a couple of second takes when I’m doing things I love. At times like this I say to myself I still have a wild and precious life. I don’t have to figure out a sense of self, I know who I am, where I ‘ve been, and I know the things I want to do. This all has come with age. My understanding of world has deepened with every year I’ve lived. I cherish this, I want to share this, I want to continue experiencing the world on my own terms on this 17^th of February 2023 on my 73^rd birthday!

 

My Life’s Work Unravels

 In 1967 the birth control pill became legal for single women. I was seventeen. Three years later I got on the pill. It was too late I was pregnant the first time I did it. My two female roommates assured me this couldn’t happen. I believed them then it happened to me.

I was lucky, through a network of women I knew a doctor who did abortions. I lived in Hawaii one of three states that just months before passed laws legalizing abortion. This was before Roe vs Wade. I was lucky I went to Plan Parenthood to get birth control. The world was on the brink of reproductive rights for all women.

I was lucky I didn’t have an illegal abortion. I had a safe abortion by a certified doctor. I was not added to the list of women who were found in a dumpster; found bleeding to death in a hotel room; found in a taxi on the way to someplace unknow after a blotched abortion. The women’s reproductive rights movement was already mobilized. The network of women calling themselves “JANE” was aiding women to find safe abortions in places where abortion was illegal.

After my abortion my longing for reproductive rights got more desperate. By now I was living in New York City. I went to get an IUD at a clinic in Spanish Harlem. I was barely able to make rent at the time. They promised complete reproductive health for $10. I believed them. For some reason I still had some trust brought about by all those years of conditioning by the male establishment.

When I got to the clinic, I laid down on the exam table while the doctor took his time to get ready to insert my IUD. He started stroking my leg. Asking me personal questions. I looked at the nurse she wouldn’t look at me. Finally, I moved my leg away. The doctor continued asking me personal questions but at least he stopped stroking my leg. Finally, the doctor inserted the IUD. I clenched the table having no idea what he was doing.

No one every explained what they were doing when they did a pelvic exam. A pelvic exam was just something women didn’t talk about because it might educate us on our sexuality, might give us some control over our bodies. We don’t talk about women’s labia either. You don’t see pictures of women’s labia in the movies, or even in pornography. We hide our labia not only from everyone around us but from ourselves too.

Years later I found out the copper IUD I got inserted was experimental. I don’t remember this ever being explained in the paperwork I signed. Soon after getting the IUD I went back to the clinic for a follow-up exam that was included in the $10. The clinic gave me a clean bill of health. I questioned this because I could feel something was going wrong in my vagina. They kept the truth from me. The clinic, the doctor, the scientist had me right where they wanted me. They wanted me to doubt myself. They wanted me to believe them, count on them to keep me healthy, to keep me from getting pregnant. I was serving their purpose. Later I learned not to believe them.

Later I joined a Self-Help Health women’s conscious raising group.  I learned to do a speculum exam on myself and on other women. I got a look at my genitals for the first time. It was obvious I had some kind of an infection. This moment was not a moment of shame, it was a moment of power. That first meeting I realized the impact that a group of women can have. I got new ways of thinking about my body. That’s right “MY BODY.” For months after this I tested the medical establishment to see where the weak spots were. I looked for all the places I could grab more control.

This control didn’t always come without harassment. I found this out when I went down to a medical supply store and asked to buy a metal speculum. The man behind the counter asked for my medical credentials. I told him I didn’t have any. I asked him if I needed a prescription from a doctor. He said no but they only sell to doctors. I told him I have a right to buy a speculum and that I already owned a plastic one but wanted something of better quality. He sold me that metal speculum. I have now officially joined a new wave of women’s liberation.

This new wave of women’s liberation gave me the courage to say out loud “I want birth control on demand.” “I wanted total control over my body.”  “I wanted to help other women get the same.” I was lucky, abortion had become legal during my fight. Clinics for women; controlled by women; started up all across the country. I moved to Seattle where there was a network of women’s clinics. Fremont Women’s Clinic, which I was a founding member, was one these clinics. There was Aradia in Seattle too. It lasted thirty years, longer than any other women’s clinic in the nation, closing its doors in 2007.

Through these clinics we educated ourselves and the women who came in about reproductive rights and how to take control their bodies. We made a network of doctors that were allies. We made ourselves known to the medical establishment that served women and let them know we were watching. We were not alone. The second wave of women’s liberation swelled into millions of women, breaking out of the old mold. Reproductive rights were a critical piece to free women.

I continued my work for reproductive rights even after I came up of the closet as a lesbian. My daughter was conceived through alternative insemination in 1984. I was part of the first wave of Lesbians having children. We first coordinated with Fremont Women’s clinic until the Seattle Times got word of what we were doing and wrote an article about lesbian’s inseminating to have children. Afraid of backlash, we immediately left the clinic, took the network underground.

To avoid the healthcare establishment and to have control of my body, I gave birth to my daughter at home. A friend of mine who was about to sit for her midwifery license helped me through the birth. Her and I were comrades in our goal to create reproductive freedom for all women. When I tell people I had a home birth, they look at me like I some kind of fanatic. I’m not a fanatic, I just want healthcare my way. A way where I am a participant, not a bystander. This has been one of my life goals.

Today I’m unlucky. Reproductive rights are being taken away. I remember thinking the start of this was in the 80’s when pro-lifers started disrupting women’s reproductive health establishments by blocking abortion clinics, degrading women trying to get in those abortion clinics to the point women turned away out of shame. Pro-lifers got more aggressive over time. They seemed to be taking their playbook from historical events like the 1916 raid on the first birth control clinic established by Margaret Sanger and her sister Ethel Byrn. This clinic only lasted nine days before it was raided, shutting it down. Both women were charged of crimes related to sharing birth control and abortion information.

Today my daughter is unlucky. She can see abortion rights going backwards.  Her future is reflected in the past. Starting with the 1821 Connecticut law outlawing abortion after “quickening.” Onto 1860 when twenty states limited abortions.  Then in 1873 the Comstock Act made it illegal to share birth control information with the public. We’ve seen hints of this in the Bush and Trump policy known as “the gag rule.” 

Texas has taken the time line further backwards with its newly enacted anti-abortion law. This law empowers ordinary citizens to police all aspects of women seeking abortion. Doctors, nurses, an Uber driver who takes a woman to an abortion clinic and even a person who shares abortion information with another woman could be at risk of a law suit as of September 2, 2021. This gives all pro-life groups who have been bombing abortion clinics, blocking access to clinics, and murdering abortion doctors, the green light to openly organize vigilante groups to police Texas’ anti-abortion law.

My daughter has taken note; this is her future and her children’s future if something isn’t done. Reversing Roe vs Wade was not the final blow. The guerilla warfare against women’s reproductive rights has rallied today State after State. Today three states don’t protect abortion rights, twelve are hostile to abortion rights and in twelve states abortion is out and out illegal. That’s a total of 27 states where it’s dangerous to seek an abortion. That’s over half of the states.

All these anti-abortion laws have deteriorated Planned Parenthood’s capacity to provide reproductive services. They have had to close clinics in rural America. It breaks my heart to see this backward motion. I worked so hard to get women their reproductive rights. This impacts women’s access to birth control and other reproductive health. This is not the age to be a young woman and I’m afraid for my daughter’s future and her daughter’s future.

Now at age 72, my life’s work is dismantling. Brick by brick, state by state. All the women-controlled clinics have long disappeared. I have no idea on what to do. I don’t know what to tell my daughter to assure access to reproductive rights. Maybe smuggle the day after pill to women in restrictive states, organize transportation networks for abortions. I look around, I no longer have a network of likeminded women. That kind of network started in the universities back in the day. Today I can’t think of one alternative organization to turn to besides Planned Parenthood. I feel more helpless than I have in a long time. I know this is not a good place to leave you but I hope you will be moved to find something to turn the tide of reproductive rights around for all women.

You Swear You Won't be Like Your Parents

You’ve watched your parents drink, drink into oblivion.  You swear you’re never going to be like them. 

You know all about drugs of choice. You know all about people whose lives are given into a drug and that drug rules their life, changes their temperament with one drink or one snort. You are a strong woman, you are present, you've earned all A’s.                                                                                                             

You are going off to college and you know you want to be, a writer. In college you work hard. In a Women’s Study class, you get attracted to another woman. You realize it isn’t the first time. You get close to her. Go out to a gay bar, you allow yourself two beers. You never had two beers in row before. Then she buys another round. You accept the third beer. She takes you home with her. This is your big coming out. You’ve secretly thought about this moment for a long time.

The next morning you don’t remember much. You go back to your dorm room. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what the fuck did you do last night. You weren’t present, you didn’t enjoy yourself. But you keep thinking about her so you back to the bar the next night hoping she’ll be there. She’s there. She buys you several of rounds.

After a couple months of going to lesbian bar and drinking with her you two decide to move in together. Now you’re drinking in the morning and on weekends. You drink with her. Your grades start to slip, you don’t call friends. You start buying hard liquor.

You graduate from college with mediocre grades. You’re broke and go out and get the first job that comes along, an Administrative Assistant at a drapery company. It pays the bills. You start smoking pot. You console yourself that it’s to relax in the evenings after working hard. You console yourself smoking pot keeps you from drinking.

You don’t notice your smoking more and more pot with the occasional LSD trip, or cocaine at a party. You tell yourself; it was just a couple of parties. You tell yourself you’ll never do cocaine on your own. You know what it was like to see people checked out of life. See them check out into a drink every day. You weren’t drinking. You joked that drugs cured your alcoholism.

You never told your parents that you drank. You would be embarrassed after all you berated them for their drinking for years. You know you shouldn’t tell your parents that you smoke pot or that you occasionally do drugs. You know they wouldn’t understand because after all their drug of choice is alcohol. You say to yourself that you don’t have a drug problem. You start to deal drugs to supply your habit. Mostly marijuana but you do any drug that is presented to you. This why you go to a lot of parties.

You walk into work one morning so hung over from doing drugs and drinking your boss says to you,

“You must have had a wild night last night.”

You lie to avoid the fact that this was a regular night at home. “Yaa, it was my best friend’s birthday, we went out on the town.”

Things got so bad you lose your job. You start to hustle money in illegal ways. You sell drugs. You scam travelers checks and more. Somehow your lover manages to keep her job and keep drinking. Your lover pays the bills. You do drugs and illegal activities to pay for your habit. You’re journalling habit of years is uninterrupted. You start to write about your addiction. The words you write reflect how helpless you feel.

You finally start limiting your drinking to the weekends. Enough is enough is what you are thinking when do this. But you don’t quit dealing drugs. You justify this because you need the money. First your weekend is Saturday and Sunday. Then you make something up to include Friday; then Thursday; then somehow you justify Wednesday being part of that weekend. You find yourself craving getting high on Monday and Tuesday.

Your lover doesn’t notice, she’s drinking more and more all the time. You substitute alcohol with pot. When the two of you go out to parties, you still find yourself around the people doing drugs, hard drugs not just pot. You join in. You realize things are still out of control when you are you the only person at a kid’s birthday party lighting a joint to get high.

Nothing has become the sum of your life. This is when you have a aha moment.  A moment when you look at your life. A life where you have nothing and you add what you see as possibilities as nothing. You’re not a math wizard but you know nothing plus nothing is nothing. You’ve been surviving in the underbelly of the world of dope dealing. Finally, you’ve had too much.

You’re a college graduate. You write every day you know what you want to be and this isn’t it. You start writing about your spiral of drug use. You write about getting out of the relationship. You write lists of things to do. Save money, cut back on the drinking, don’t do drugs at parties. You know you need to expand your world beyond your lover.

You decide to take a writing class. Cutting back on the drinking isn’t easy. It was easy to quick the drugs. This saved you money. You make friends in your classes. You stop going to the bar with your lover. You use the excuse you have homework. You find yourself drinking and doing drugs alone so no one will see you, make you accountable.

One day you call the gay alcohol and drug treatment center. They’re booked up two months out. You make an appointment. You decide you to use this time to get it all out of your system. Then you’d be ready. Ready for what? You weren’t sure but you didn’t want to be here anymore. In your usual check out way you take off for a road trip with your lover. She was in the same boat, a boat sinking so fast one or both of you were going to drown if something didn’t change. You didn’t tell your lover your plan before you left.

On this trip you took indulging to a whole new level. You digested every kind of drug and drink you could get your hands on. No holds barred. When you returned you couldn’t remember a blow-by-blow account of the road trip. You weren’t honest with yourself that it was because you were fucked up 24/7. You started to withdraw from your lover. You knew if you get sober, you’ll have to leave the relationship.

The day came September 7, 1982. You go down to Stonewall Recovery Center. See a counselor who goes through question after question for induction into treatment. You are humiliated by some of the questions. You wished he’d just asked you if you had a problem instead of asking you all those questions. At the end of the questioning the counselor proclaims, “You’re an alcoholic.” Well da, you think, you could have told him that. That’s why you are here, that’s why you’re putting your whole life on the line. You want to somehow crawl out of this addiction. But in the same moment relieve seeps out of your pores. Your brain dumped years of all the shit you’ve been fighting, into the hands of? You aren’t sure.

You go home to your lover; tell her you are leaving. You walk out with nothing. Homeless and unemployed you hustled a friend, well actually one of your drug customers, who is moving out her apartment. You arrange to pay her the deposit so you can take over the lease without telling the landlord.

You move in with only your bed before she moves out. As soon as the woman moves out you walk the ally the night before garbage day to scavenge furniture. You find a kid’s bed for a couch, a table for the kitchen. You do this several weeks in a row until the apartment feels livable. The fact that the apartment’s heat isn’t enough to prevent the widows from freezing on cold nights doesn’t faze you. You are still numb from using.

The counselor requires you go to three AA meetings and one counseling session with them every week. After a month of this you drop the counselor and go to more AA meetings. You now have six months clean and sober. You get a job at a 7-11. This is step up from the illegal activities you’ve doing to survive.

You write about how you’re crawling out of the underbelly of society. Clawing slowly out of a fog that took years to settle in. You don’t always feel positive about all this but you hold on with dear life. You learn to live a life without drugs and alcohol. This means learning to socialize and know what you did in the morning. This means taking responsibility for what you do. This means making an honest living.

All of this isn’t easy, but you do it one day at time as they tell you in AA. You start getting in touch with your goals before all the using started. Goals like writing, having a healthy relationship, you think you even want children. You learn you have to patient that these goals only come about through paying attention and hard work.

You still go to AA meetings to remind yourself how vulnerable you are. About how you were drowning in destruction. You remind yourself how you’ve turned your life around. You know you can never turn your back on how bad things were when you were using. This important some days to get you through a hard day.

Years later now you feel so blessed to be sober. You have a lover that is your wife. You’ve been together 28 years. Your daughter just 38. You had a good career as an accountant to make money. You never stopped writing. Now in retirement your writing is your life line to being present.