It happened all of a sudden. Of course, I started getting mail from the AARP when I turned 50, but I ignored that until, in search of some good deals, I joined at 60. But I wasn’t really a senior. Now I am.
It happened when I moved to Davis, CA a couple of weeks ago. At the Food Co-op, I automatically get a senior discount, so at the check stand I say, “I’m a senior.” Yes, the public pronouncement of an identity that is troubling to Boomers. But what the heck, do I hide my years and avoid getting the “benefits” of age that this culture bestows? Me thinks not.
Additionally, I can get a free pass for the local bus system run by the student and city governments. Also available is a senior discount subscription to the local paper. (This so I can look for the obituaries of people I knew when I lived here 20 years ago.)
So I begin the next phase of my life. I could say I was late middle-aged or indulge in the death denying fantasy that 60 is the new 40 and 70 the new 50, but I won’t. Instead, with this post I begin to reflect here on aging (and my aging) in America. Sure, many of us will age easier and live longer. But youth, if not a youthful style, is a thing of the past. And after 60, certainly 65, so is middle-age.
While I may be a senior. I am not retired, nor would I likely ever say I was. For that identity changing declaration makes one irrelevant.
I close this post with two lines I wrote in splashing bird:
aging in two worlds
Singapore: old and perhaps in the Way
America: old and definitely in the way
More later.
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