Retired And Too Old, Say What?

Friends had warned me it would be coming soon, and I didn't believe them. Was sure they had to be mistaken.

But they weren't.

The AARP solicitation for membership came two months and a day before my 50th birthday, and I was stunned this group was contacting me. I knew the multi-word name this acronym stood for, and the R really annoyed me.

I am nowhere near being "out of use", "too old for work", "withdrawn from circulation", "isolated", "removed" or whatever else that dictionaries call retired these days.

I am also not old, let alone "too old," even if plenty of younger people may think I am.

At least, I certainly don't feel like it. I feel 21. Actually, make that better than 21, because I now have the benefit of 29 additional years of experience.

Since my birthday back in August, two more pieces of AARP mail arrived. One was lumped in with a free mailer. The other I don't recall. And I can't tell you what was inside either one, because I never opened them; I shredded them. But in the first envelope I received before my birthday, there wasn't a note or letter.  Nothing that even said, "Well done." Only a bland white form with boxes to tick--membership categories of one ($16), three ($43) or five ($63) years.
 
And for Heaven's sake, doesn't turning half a century warrant more than that?

All due respect to AARP, but it felt like yet another reminder of how little our culture values growing older--except for the profit that might be made from it.

And as far as I'm concerned, entering this third quarter of life--this autumn, if you will--is such an important occasion, it's worthy of more than a membership solicitation. It deserves a rite of passage.

After all, now is the time when we finally can reap what we have sewn, so it's cause for celebration. Maybe even a coronation.

I've always liked the idea of a crown.

Okay, granted, maybe that's over the top. But author and gardener Rose G. Kinglsey didn't seem to think so--at least, not when it came to autumn in her garden.

"Autumn is indeed the crowning glory of the year," she wrote, "bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil."

And are we human beings not just as worthy of such ennobling attention?

Because I, too, have had months of thought and care and toil--50 years worth. I have also finally fruited. Or, at least, have begun fruiting. So I know things. Cool things. Things you can't possibly know unless you've actually lived through them.

I may not have the physical youth I had at 21, but I possess so much more, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. That's why I don't wish to be categorized as old or retired or otherwise. It feels ageist, as if my culture is unceremoniously shoving me into a box--to be kept there until 65, when I will then be flopped into another box labeled "Senior Citizen," until I am ultimately dumped in that final box, which ends up in the ground.

And maybe that's my issue with all of this--the unceremonious-ness of it all. Where is our society's recognition of the joy and honor of the journey of aging?

Ceremonies and rituals focus our attention on the divinity of something--the deeper, more significant meaning of it, and they show our gratitude for what we've been given. Their purpose is to empower our imagination and awaken our spirit. And when endorsed by the larger community, they affirm our value within --and support by--that community.

Unfortunately, when the only thing my community does is solicit me for money when I reach part two of my life, I don't feel empowered, affirmed or supported.

But I know this group didn't mean to offend me. I also know that I'm responsible for my reaction to their solicitation. No person or group can make me feel insulted unless I allow it.

Our society is what it is; I have to accept that. And if I want to feel empowered, affirmed and supported as I grow older, I will have to create those feelings for myself. Doing things on my own always makes me stronger anyway.

So…where to get that crown?

Aging Awkwardly, But Grateful

As my 50th birthday looms, I am determined to not fret over the evidence of history etched on my face more and more each year and instead try to adjust my attitude.

I don't want my wrinkles injected with cow's collagen or my frown muscles subjected to bacterium toxin or my eyebrows lifted into perfect crescent moons via a surgeon's scalpel.

Of course, all people should be able to do what they want with their faces and their bodies without others criticizing them. So let me say here that I am not criticizing anyone.  I am simply venting, because I'm afraid.

I'm afraid that beauty will be founded eventually on the homogenized look of plastic surgeons, instead of on individuality--and something even more troubling, that because I want to opt out of these procedures, I will be discounted because of it.

And left to fly my wrinkled-woman flag alone.

At least in the past we all looked old together. We comforted each other through our common shared experience.

But now, I see myself in 30 years, one of the last few old female faces left and, consequently, compelled to explain myself to curious little children who don't understand why I am so different from others my age. Why I look 80 at 80.

Still, I can't get passed this feeling that tells me not to interfere with something that isn't broken. And when I ever begin to doubt that, our Jeep provides me reassurance.

Each time this old girl goes in for an oil change, someone invariably comes up to me, holding some grimy part of her, and tells me how wrecked it is. I then call my husband on my cell phone, and he always tells me some version of this: When you go under the hood to fix something, which probably doesn't need fixing, you're only asking for trouble.

And I know he's right, because the time I did let someone fix something, which probably didn't need fixing, somehow another thing mysteriously got broken. So now I leave well enough alone.

I'm trying to do the same with myself.  Although, three years ago, I decided to get braces.

A year or so after I'd gotten them, I teasingly asked my husband what he thought, certain he'd agree I looked like a wrinkled teenager. But instead he said he didn't like them.

It took a few days for me to finally eke out why, because he kept saying he didn't know.

It wasn't the cost, he said, or that I more or less up and did it without much discussion. It also wasn't because I looked a little ridiculous, although I think I did.

The reason he didn't like the braces, he said, was because he feared they were only the beginning, and that I would eventually do something more riskful, like injecting botulin into my face. Or worse.

I was glad he loves me enough to worry about such things--and that I was once again reminded that he doesn't need me to change my outsides.

And I'm grateful he's been that way for the entire 25 years that I've known him.

Once, when I whimpered about hating the way my face looked since I've gotten older, he said, "I don't like it when you talk that way about your face; I like your face the way it is."

And I cried then, because he told me what probably all wives want to hear.

If only it were enough.

But it isn't. I am the one who has to love my outsides just the way they are or I will never be satisfied. I will always be afraid of the next new wrinkle or gray hair--or lack thereof.

So I keep reminding myself how lucky I am to be aging at all. It means I'm still alive. When I do that, I can feel my attitude getting stronger.

I also eat more healthily than I used to and I exercise three times a week, so I know I'm on the right track.

Now, if I can only quit obsessing over whether or not to buy that cosmetic contraption on that shopping channel that superficially stimulates your facial muscles with baby electrical currents and thereby firms and smoothes the skin…

QUESTION: How accepting are you of your aging process and what, if anything, could you do to improve your attitude?

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