Offically old feels officially strange
Yesterday, I went to a government service bureau, in response to a form delivered in an innocuous brown envelope. The letter began: "This information sheet will help you complete the application for the Old Age Security pension..." No euphemisms like "golden age" or
"senior's benefit". Stark, crisp 19th century language: you're old,
kiddo; want a chunk of change?
Worse than turning 50, buying support hose (which at least I no longer need, thanks to EVLA),or hearing my doctor begin a sentence with "At your age..." was the receipt of an official document in benevolent, 14-point sans-serif type.
I went to them. Fanette, the Service Canada clerk, was twinkly as she led me though the paperwork and notarized some documents, flashing a way to go, girlfriend look when Le Duc filled in his birthdate (seven years after mine) in the spousal info field.
After being officially old-person processed, I ran an errand but found myself standing in a Mephisto store. What am I, a geriatric homing pigeon? The place was full of head to toe wash-and-wearers, one woman hauling three shopping bags stuffed from a spree at Tilley. I fled.
Home empty-handed, wondering if a martini at 2:45 pm. is somehow so wrong.
Realized I had a boiled-wool and leather jacket scooped off a sale rack last spring, just waiting for a cool fall day. Added my Diamond Jubilee scarf for succor: Her Majesty is even older.
Strode across the street to the park to check out a band playing, "real good, for free" as the Joni Mitchell song goes.
Oh right, as the song went in...1970.
I've always said I don't mind getting older; when I think of friends who are no longer here, carping seems ungrateful. But today, my government formally acknowledged my old age, and it feels so sudden, so weird.
When the first cheque hits my account in July, I'm choosing some kind of symbol of this passage, funded with a few dollars of this initial payment and also donating to the organizations who work to alleviate the diseases that claimed some of my favourite friends, whom I dearly wish were here to grow old with me.
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| How can this be? |
Worse than turning 50, buying support hose (which at least I no longer need, thanks to EVLA),or hearing my doctor begin a sentence with "At your age..." was the receipt of an official document in benevolent, 14-point sans-serif type.
I went to them. Fanette, the Service Canada clerk, was twinkly as she led me though the paperwork and notarized some documents, flashing a way to go, girlfriend look when Le Duc filled in his birthdate (seven years after mine) in the spousal info field.
After being officially old-person processed, I ran an errand but found myself standing in a Mephisto store. What am I, a geriatric homing pigeon? The place was full of head to toe wash-and-wearers, one woman hauling three shopping bags stuffed from a spree at Tilley. I fled.
Home empty-handed, wondering if a martini at 2:45 pm. is somehow so wrong.
Realized I had a boiled-wool and leather jacket scooped off a sale rack last spring, just waiting for a cool fall day. Added my Diamond Jubilee scarf for succor: Her Majesty is even older.
Strode across the street to the park to check out a band playing, "real good, for free" as the Joni Mitchell song goes.
Oh right, as the song went in...1970.
I've always said I don't mind getting older; when I think of friends who are no longer here, carping seems ungrateful. But today, my government formally acknowledged my old age, and it feels so sudden, so weird.
When the first cheque hits my account in July, I'm choosing some kind of symbol of this passage, funded with a few dollars of this initial payment and also donating to the organizations who work to alleviate the diseases that claimed some of my favourite friends, whom I dearly wish were here to grow old with me.
Comments
I loathe getting older. Yes, of course dying young or in middle age is infinitely worse.
There was a Mental Health awareness day here, last week if I recall, with Margaret Sinclair-Trudeau-Kemper as spokesperson. Your comment about your sister's suicide set me off thinking - and dreaming - about a couple of people close to me who had done so. We usually think of cancer and circulatory disease as among the major killers, but despair is certainly up there too.
You are also lucky that today is a perfectly lovely day. I'm going chez une amie to celebrate her birthday (she is a couple of years older than you, and one of those wiry athletic types - her dad was a phys ed professor and senior tennis player in retirement) and that of another friend who must be almost ten years older, still going strong in his 70s, flying all over the place giving lectures and attending conferences. Comme ça va sans dire, there will be good food and wine, and perhaps even a bit of sun left on the terrasse in late afternoon...
Obviously not everyone can be as high-powered as that, but it gives me a bit of optimism. I find getting older feels lonely and sad, and it isn't because I'm friendless by any means. Hard to articulate exactly what I mean. I certainly don't mean despair; wistfulness?
Swissy
As someone said, bittersweet post and what a good idea of what to do with your old age checks.
I don't mind aging except that it means I'm going to die. And I truly, truly don't want to die. Life is the sweetest and most blissful thing, even in its most painful moments.
I really like reading Ronni Bennet's Time Goes By blog. She puts it out there uneuphemistically. Those who aren't old often don't like to hear from those who are. We all like to pretend we're going to live forever, but we're not.
I have come to believe that we owe those who are old the right to talk about aging, and eventual death. No matter how uncomfortable it makes us. Because I'm going to be in that space sooner rather than later, I'd better start to change the culture from this side of the divide.
Glad to have you and your voice speaking out.
You look way too cool in leather/scarf to ever be "wash and wear old."
you my dear are the epitome of grace.
I
Congratulations and might I be so bold as to suggest a fabulous kick ass piece of jewelry to mark the moment?
My girlfriend's mother who recently passed made a comment when she was touring the upscale seniors residence before she moved in...
"Oh God look at all those women wearing TABI outfits I cannot possibly move in here!"
Her daughter responded with "Of course you can mother someone has to show them how its done."
lagatta: Glad your friends give you optimism; it is a precious gift.
pseu: No, they don't, in either official language. And it makes me realize how much I dislike the term "65 years (or whatever) young" and being called dear", which I also was, twice this week.
Swissy: Thank you, I am buoyed by your thoughtfulness.
Susan: The friend I was thinking of was also named Susan; she wanted to live long enough to see her youngest child enter university, and she was able to do that.
Kathy Leeds: Health is the #1 priority, and I am a little surprised how much more conscious of that I and my friends have become.
LPC.: I *love* As Time Goes By, it's a welcome antidote to the many blogs that deny age and are written women trying so hard to fight every line. Ronni is not afraid to be political, tart or inconsistent. Death draws closer and I reflect on what comfort a believe in an after-life affords some. Unfortunately I'm skeptical.
Gretchen: Managed to hold off till 5:45, but I shall extend your permission to another occasion!
Artful: "Impermanence" is somehow more philosophical and comforting than the stark term "loss", which is the word I think of when I recall my friends who died too young. I feel better when I consider it as part of the impermanence of everything.
hostess: Reminds me of my mother, who initially opted into a very ritzy retirement home. Clothes were a huge deal, worse than high school. After a month or so she bailed and chose a nice but not grand place where she could wear what she liked.
With my 60th next year, I feel something shifting internally. Certain numbers do matter in ineffable, ephemeral ways. . .
We are also celebrating the completion of my street - the roadwork seemed to be the only thing of permanence in the universe, alongside the proverbial death and taxes.
I don't mind getting older, never have, still don't although I am a decade younger. Will I feel differently in 10 years? I don't think so. Being here is its own reward, why not celebrate it?
I find myself in this odd place at the moment, being at home with an older husband, most of the women I meet and spend time with are in their 60s or 70s and I am inspired and amazed by many of them
Marsha: Well, why not? Better than crying!
Mardel: Good to have models a decade ahead. My friends and I used to marvel at our mothers, how capable they were "at their age". Now we are there.
Oh, and regarding the Old Age language, I remember when I was pregnant with my first child at age 36; they wrote on my chart, "advanced maternal age". Geez. I hated that terminology!
---Jill Ann
And a major later-middle-age goal for me is to Dress Really Well. Even though I don't have a job to go to.
---Jill Ann
Francie
Jil Ann: That's a major transition; hope you will tell us how it goes. As I recall you have also lost a lot of weight. Many changes chez toi. When my sons left home the house felt immense, like a monster home.
Francie: The vote for afternoon martinis has been recorded and will stand for posterity. I wish to say, lest friends are worried, that they are a *very* occasional treat and function most effectively that way.
Welcome to the club.
Must get my old blk leather jacket out.
Here, in best moderate Canadian manner, my bus pass is only half-price and I must wait till July- the birthday- to get my photo ID.
I'm just a bit behind you, turning 62 today. It's very possible that the photo of you looking so wonderful inspired my choice of a silk foulard skirt, cashmere sweater, high-heeled boots and leather jacket to wear to a wine-tasting dinner last night with my (also younger!) husband and friends, one of whom was celebrating 2 years cancer-free.
It's early morning; pulling the blind up to find the sun caught in the maples outside my window was like opening a treasure chest. I used to read Dylan Thomas's "Poem in October"--the one that begins "It was my thirtieth year to heaven"--every year on my birthday, until the gulf between "my thirtieth year" and my actual age began to widen alarmingly. I think I will read that poem again today, though, because it captures so perfectly the exhilaration of simply being alive among so much beauty.
C.
C.: Very happy birthday to you, and may you enjoy every second of this day and this year. I read once that how happy one is growing older is in direct proportion to how much one can enjoy the simplest things. In that case, you are all set.
Decadence is defined as "luxurious self indulgence". There will not be the financial resources for many in my age group to live decently, let alone luxuriously, given the stats I read on savings.
You are how we say here, ein Gesamtkunstwerk.