99 New: Luxurious

I’m doing things I never thought I’d do. Like sit with old people holding a sign saying I’m old.

Five years ago when I was also certifiably old (this old thing didn’t just happen last night), I wouldn’t have been caught dead looking like I belonged with the old people. I’d sit across the room, smile at them benignly, the sweet old feisty gals and guys, and focus my attention on the movers and shakers in the room which, by definition in my head at the time, were not the old people.

But there comes a point when one wants to be with one’s people. And old people are now my people. And it’s not just because they’re the only people who will have me although there are whiffs of marginalization when I am with younger people that might be imperceptible to a less vigilant person.

I sit with the old people because that is where my life is right now. It is with very smart, progressive, risk-taking old people who care deeply about a lot of things, know how to get things done, and have nothing to lose.  We can afford to be outrageous, sit with our signs, organize demonstrations, and graciously receive the envy of younger people who are so often tied in knots by their obligations, worries, and fears. We don’t have those things anymore. Well, we sort of do. We fear death, disability, and dementia, the Three D’s of the Apocalypse, but we don’t think about those things lest we freeze in our tracks and fall over in a puddle of hopelessness.

What I’ve learned from this transition, this transformative experience of moving from looking at old people to being one, is that if you are old and you don’t figure out how to affiliate with your age peers, you may often feel like the odd man out. And that is not a happy feeling. Oh, it’s swell to be the respected elder. It’s sweller still to be the hip older person, the one with a quip, an observation, a little joie de vivre that youngers can’t afford to have. But it’s swellest to be who you are, to relax into yourself, to stop fighting off the truth and just decide to wear it like the most expensive mink coat in the window.

I love my new fur.