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.