Another conundrum of adulting: Aging or Ageless?

 

 

By Reba Hull Campbell

 

I suppose part of the adulting process is examining the issue of age. How old do you have to be before you qualify as elderly old, or middle aged? Is it when you start having those age-related medical tests like a colonoscopy, mammogram and bone density test? Is it when you qualify for the senior discount at the pharmacy? Is it when the server calls you ma’am instead of miss? Is it when those old people cartoons on napkins don’t seem so funny anymore?

It’s just gets more and more confounding. I’m closer in age to one 40-year-old friend’s parents and recently realized I’m a few years older than a 31-year-old friend’s mother. A friend two years behind me in high school already has three grandchildren while another friend my age still has four kids in middle school.

I’m finding it more and more difficult to look at random people and tell their age. Growing up, I identified “my age” as someone in my grade at school. When I moved back to Columbia ten years after college graduation, that “my age” definition seemed to have shifted as people I’d known growing up who were, at the point, “way older” or “way younger” became “my age.” That first grade girl who remembered me as a 12^th grade cheerleader introduced me to her husband as someone she went to school with.

In my mind when I was growing up, old always equaled looking, dressing and acting a certain way. That certain way involved panty hose, a weekly beauty parlor appointment and lipstick. If that definition applies, then I’m not old yet – and never will be.

I haven’t bought panty hose in 20 years. I go to a salon and not a beauty parlor – and that’s only once every couple of months for a color touch up. The closest I get to lipstick is Burt’s Bees lip balm that I keep in every pocket, drawer and bag I use.

A recent NPR radio program really got me thinking about the idea of age. The topic that kept me intrigued was about the consequences of middle age. I was raptly attentive until I realized the host was using 40 as the benchmark for middle age.

While I can’t exactly pinpoint when I consider middle age to kick in, it certainly isn’t 40! Most of my 40ish friends are still negotiating carpools, soccer schedules or orthodontist appointments. To me, that doesn’t square with middle age.

Yet, everything the host and guests talked about was relevant to me … except the 40 part. So if I’m 17 years past this magic mark of 40 that defines the descent into middle age, where exactly does 57 fall on this age spectrum?

I’m on the barely trailing end of being a boomer. I’m on the early end of contemporaries who are retiring. I have long-since received my first solicitation for AARP membership (which uses 50 as the benchmark). I now qualify to live in my parent’s retirement community. So am I middle aged? What’s the next phase? Old?

There was lots of discussion on this radio program about why age does or doesn’t matter. Is it just a number on a driver’s license? Should age drive our decisions? Should we consider age more a matter of how we feel not how we look?

A painful back injury last summer made me realize that age does impact how I feel. I’m fairly active. I know my limits, and I know when I can push them. While I’m typically the oldest (by far) in a workout class, I can usually keep up with everyone else. But when I went to the doctor to figure out what I needed to do to make this injury better and ensure it wouldn’t happen again, all he could offer was “stop aging.”

I recently saw a black and white photo of myself doing something I enjoy immensely – playing the uke with my friends in our band, Serious FM. A friend shard the photos he had taken us of at an outdoor performance. 

They were artfully edited black and white photos that clearly illustrated our joy, concentration, fun, focus and passion in playing. I was blown away by his thoughtfulness and grateful to be able to witness us playing through the lens of his camera.

Later, however, I went back and looked at the photos again. Somehow the lens that had reflected joy, fun and passion the first time I looked, was now showing off my age spots, wrinkled neck and sagging jawline. How’d that happen?

I immediately realized I was looking at myself in a judgy way that I would never look at my friends in those photographs. I quickly recalibrated my thought process recalling how one friend said he thought I looked like a “badass” in the photos (I took that as positive feedback) and another said she thought I had “good shoulders.”

Maybe they too had noticed the age spots, sagging jawline and wrinkled neck but what really came through was the fact we were enjoying the heck out of something we were doing just for the joy of it.

And that’s ageless!

 

 

When not working to promote the interests of SC cities and towns as deputy executive director of the Municipal Association of SC, Reba is passionate about travel, writing, learning to play the uke and staying connected with old friends. Reba can be reached at [email protected] or through her blog at http://randomconnectpoints.blogspot.com.