My Worst Nightmare...

Girls weekend… it was great until we all got in a car and went to the bank.  In the car were five women from our 20s to 50.  We were in line for the drive up window.  Three cars in front of us, three behind and the lines weren't moving.  I felt the subject turning to age.  Some of the women were fond of repeating their age, and saying things like, 'The older I get,'  A L O T so the warnings were all there.  Still, we were three quarters of the way through the weekend and I was optimistic about getting through without being asked.  Then it happened.

It felt like one of those movies were a military squad is in enemy territory, about to get blown up by an IED.  The windows were closed, enhancing that feeling of the world being silenced as all objects in and out of the car begin their projectile in ultra slow motion and I found myself wishing I was the first item to disintegrate into a billion pieces while being thrust into the air.  My friend, who knows how I feel about this subject, was pushing me to answer…  a betrayal on the level of Judas.  

I got through this one by offering to reveal my weight.  That did the trick.  No one wants to talk about their weight.  Later something beautiful happened for the the second time in my life.

That night at dinner, the youngest among us told a story about her own experience with ageism.  She was at a function, having a lovely conversation with a woman perhaps twice her age when the woman asked her age.  She responded perfectly by asking, 'Why?'

If possible, that is the ideal way to handle being asked, 'How old are you?'  For me it's difficult to say without the multitude of emotion that goes along with it such as fear, anger, sarcasm just to name a few, becoming glaringly apparent.  This woman seemed to deliver it perfectly.  Still she said as soon as the question was out, she felt a shift in the conversation.  The lovely conversation they were having was over.  Now she was silently labeled as a daughter or a kid.

I was grateful that she told this story.  It reminds me that labeling someone based on their age, whether it be young, old or somewhere in between, always stings.  

When A Good Friend Strikes You With The Question

Some of the best friends I've known for decades accept my age-o-phobe-icness and never bring the subject up.  Maybe they looked it up themselves but never let on or treat me any different now that they know my age.  That's ideal.

Yesterday a very good, new friend asked, "How Old Are You?"  I made my usual attempts to dissuade her nosiness but she persisted.  My first response was, I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you to which she responded, 'So kill me.'  Then I made the HUGE MISTAKE of asking her to guess my age and she guessed way older.  It's very hard to recover from that.  It's the same feeling as when a child draws a picture of you emphasizing your worst feature, it's just how they see you.

I'm a few* years older than the nosy friend, and so is her husband.  So after I told her my age, leaving me like a balloon popped by the pin prick of a question to hurtle across the yard, into a tiny pile of tattered latex, she then said, 'Oh, you're the same age as Nick - - but you look MUCH younger than him (even though she just guessed I was older than him.)  Here's the surprise ending to this incident - -  HER countenance changed.

Was she disappointed that she could no longer put me in the 'mother'** category and now had to see me as competition?  I don't know for sure what her change was about but it wasn't about me.  Somehow knowing my age made her feel bad.

So people, just STFU when it comes to age because everyone loses.


*A few is such a great word because no one actually holds you to meaning literally three.
**Something I will do if a person is six months or more older than me.