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.

On The Bright Side Of Molestation...

Stephen Collins, a popular actor, was recorded admitting to molesting children.  He only admitted to molesting and/or exposing himself to three but one woman, now 54-years-old, said that he had molested her too.  I felt a surge of happiness because she's older than me.

#ShamefulWin

The Einstein Award goes to the woman who upon learning that I didn't have any children then asked, "No grand children?"

OK, I'm awake after a four year sleep.

A construction worker asked if he could pet my dog and used the opportunity to tell me what great shape I"m in.  

"Thank y-  "

"How old are you?"

"Why?"

"I can see that you're older but you look great for your age."

In reality I removed my hand from his and glided away.  In my fantasy, I castrated him.

Well....

Well, I originally started this blog to post a book outline but realized today that things happen every day that are age related. I have this condition, Raynauds Syndrome, that causes the tip of my index finger to go white and it is kind of scary. In one of my hypochondriacs handbooks, I thought it said that it could be nothing or very serious. So today it went numb a few times forcing me to look it up again. Upon a second reading, it is only serious if it is the result of another condition.

The bonus to looking this up again is that Raynauds is common among younger women!! Yay for diseases of the young!!

CHAPTER 16: SHE'LL BE OLD IN NO TIME!

Remember when Kate Moss and Claudia Schiffer were hot new teen models? Now they’ve crossed the 25-year mark and have teen models of their own to envy! That’s comforting.

This chapter contains uplifting and inspirational thoughts like, “After we die, chances are our spiritual bodies won’t have wrinkles or require plastic surgery or change in any way, shape, or form by the forces of gravity.” (I hope)

You Were Born In the 1900’s?

This is a comfort that someday, even babies I know today will be asked this question incredulously by someone younger, born after the year 2000. And it reminds me that although people alive now have ages within a 100-year range, we’re all at least alive at the same time!

Like I remember watching the gorgeous Tia Carara (or some name like that, she was the hot band chick and love interest in the movie “Wayne’s World”) when questioned by a reporter about what she was doing when some significant event took place in 1977, saying, “I was a fetus.” At the time, I wanted to make her go away, but now I realize she’s already out of that tiny window of age comfort and cockiness. She’s probably well into cosmetic surgery procedures already. The point being, it’s comforting to watch other people’s years pass them by too, after yours have gone.