How To Really Tell If You're Getting Old

Here’s the trouble with life – when it comes to age, you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, and then you can delude yourself as often as you like. But sooner or later, the truth comes back to bite you!

In our quest these days to believe we are younger than we are, and to convince others of the same, we have accomplished many feats to promote the illusion…and delusion.  We act young, we think young, and God help us, do everything imaginable to look young!!  We dye hair, attach hair, grow hair, transplant hair, plug hair, shave hair, wax hair, depilitorize hair, bleach hair, laser hair, and when all else fails, just shave our heads so no one will look at anything else.  Every day there are new gadgets on TV for nose hair and ear hair. This is just for hair…we won’t go into skin, body build, sucking the fat out, putting the silicone in, so on and so forth.  There are facelifts and magical creams.  Now I hear you can freeze your fat cells...I'm not sure where they go, but when I see some of the faces of movie stars who have had too much silicone ending up lopsided on their faces, I would really worry where these frozen fat cells go.  I of course would love to freeze my thighs, but what if the frozen fat cells slide down to my ankles?...It would be like having a uni-brow, only a uni-ankle, and I would have to hop everywhere.

But what happens for me, is that just when I’m having a good day, or at least a good  moment, and feeling pretty young and groovy, some bit of minutiae hits me over the head with a reality check.

For example, the last time you had to put your year of birth on a computerized form, how long did it take you to scroll the list of dates?  Now even if you give yourself a grace period of ten years since they usually start with this year, (not sure why, I am assuming not too many infants are applying for their credit scores), you have to keep scrolling for a long time.  Down through the 90’s, the 80’s, the 70’s…keep going... the 60’s, and finally, the 50’s!  I’m so glad I was born in 1950 and not 1949, another whole decade.

Same as last time I decided to find a music channel.  I clicked for an “oldies” station.  They said that the 80’s were the oldies!  I couldn't believe it!  I felt so confused and upset…the 80’s were not the oldies, they were part of my adulthood.  I was in my thirties.  So I tried to go to the 70’s…they were the golden oldies.  I tried the 60’s…they were the classic oldies.  Finally I tried the 50’s…they were the classics…sort of like Tale of Two Cities…classics!  Not to be confused with classical music by Beethoven or Mozart…I liked it better when Great Balls of Fire was one of the oldies.  Not a classic...it just doesn't sound right.

Another thing that can backfire is having young friends.  Because many of the women I work with are quite a bit younger than me I often have close friends who are younger.  Now this is very uplifting, as I think we tend to reflect the company we keep, and it is fun to be out with or collaborating at work with younger people. No one seems to notice any difference, we like the same things and usually love the same girl talk, we're all best of friends.  Until that one fateful moment, when I am talking about something I used to like, or something I remember, or something I once did, and one of them says…”Oh yeah, my mother tells me the same thing.”  Damn. 

And finally, there is the big mother of the age reminders, the jolt out of the blue, the dreaded question from strangers and friends – how old are your children?  Why is it so hard to realize that my son in a few years will be hitting forty, when I know I am already on the dark side of sixty?  Why do I get so confused, and have to stop and remember…I am not still in my forties. If my son is in his forties, then logic tells me I can't be the same as him.  But I think I'm in my forties, I dyed my hair this month, I know what an I-pod is. But oh yeah, I had to have my grandchildren teach me how to use it.

So I guess the point here is, it is a worthy goal.  And good for us for being young at heart, and wanting to have fun, and even thinking we should have sex!!!  Why not.  We earned it. We were the generation of the birth control pill, and now we have the blue pill...guess we were meant to be the generation of great lovers.  And as long as we pursue this goal, there will be manufacturers of a million products promising us the desired results.  So on our good days, we should persevere.

But I have to confess, on my tired days, I may start to rethink...because... let's face it, you can fool some of the people…a few of the people…and even yourself, mmmmm, once in a while?

In the meantime, I'm going to get some ice cubes.