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!