What’s the Word for 2024? Engagement

They don’t use the word retirement for nothing.

So much of aging is about retiring, withdrawing, relinquishing, shrinking. It’s not just a societal norm, it’s a gravitational pull. And it can be overpowering.

People don’t wake up one morning and think – I want to be small. I want to be on the sidelines. I want to watch. It comes gradually. They reflect on how they’ve earned the right to do nothing, how they’re tired from the rat race and have contributed plenty to their families and towns and so now, it was time to just sit down and let other people mash the potatoes.

And then, while the retired people are sitting in the comfy chairs and drinking protein shakes, they realize that younger people are talking over them, like they might in a roomful of children playing with Legos. Don’t mind them, they’re just building their little troll houses. And clarity arrives like a gallon of ice cream dumped in one’s lap. They think I’m retired! They think I have nothing to say.

That’s when older adults realize that they’ve been stitched into the seams, the margins. Then they have to decide if they like it there or they want to bust out. Being marginalized used to be a thing that happened to other people. If you are old, it is probably happening to you.

So, here we are with a choice to make. To relax into being a spectator or engage.

I choose engagement in spades. Showing up, speaking up, standing up. In old places and new. Cheerfully and kindly, but affirmatively. Let me meet new people and do new things. Let me irritate and educate, go places I don’t belong. Let me always be the oldest person in the room. I don’t care. I belong here. I belong everywhere. I was sent. By myself.

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Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash