Refusing to Age in the Same Old Way
“I’m just an old battle-ax.”
The speaker was a slim woman, fashionably dressed, with enviably high cheekbones. The scene was the lobby of a senior citizen apartment residence, and the lady in question did use a walker and did have some wrinkles and gray hair -- factors hardly qualifying her for an “old battle-ax” moniker, and I said so. She cheerfully insisted the description was apt.
Her self-abasement struck an unhappy chord within me. It was not the first such instance. How often have we heard an elderly person preface an opinion or anecdote by the declaration, “I’m just an old lady but ...” or “I’m just an old geezer and....”
Since my late 20s I’ve been aware of American society’s generally dismissive attitude toward its senior members. Of course, this is changing. More gradually than not, but it is improving. It was only in my later adulthood that I began to observe how senior citizens could be their own worst enemy by failing to promote a favorable perception of themselves. My cousin and his wife -- both vital people in their late 70s -- have long had a phrase for this: buying into being old.
True, not all people arrive at old age with full health and vigor intact. But often when an individual is struck down by an irreversible injury or illness, that person rises to the occasion with courage and resolve. How wonderful and inspiring would it be if we approached advancing years in the same manner.
But, alas, growing older is mundane and everyday and lacks drama. There are runs-for-a-cure for breast cancer, muscular dystrophy and AIDS, among others, but none for old age. Nor should there be. It is not only “buying into being old” but buying into the familiar demons of commercialism and capitalism that leads us to presume because we are no longer in the workforce we are no longer “productive” members of society. It is wrong to conclude that because we may suffer infirmities to one degree or another, we can no longer be viable citizens. Examples to the contrary are all around us and are growing in number. There is the still beautiful (more important, still adventurous) former supermodel Lauren Hutton, who announced upon turning 60 that “60 is the new 30.”
And there are other examples of people, no longer with us, but who lived to a ripe number with verve and purpose. One example is the redoubtable Katharine Hepburn. And there are the famous Delany sisters, who co-authored “Having Our Say” in 1993, the first of several books heralding their vibrant lives, which ended at ages 104 and 109.
Shakespeare wrote: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players ... that ends this strange eventful history ... sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” Sans everything may have been true in Shakespeare’s time. It need not be in ours.
Sunny Kreis is a writer in Santa Monica.