Photo by me. Newport KY 2023
These roots were made for talking They have something to say And one of these days These roots and hands will age to my dismay
I really don’t fixate on age. In fact, I like knowing all the things I know and having some of those dramatic stages of youth far behind me. It’s like that exercise that has you put your problems in a circle with other people’s problems and results in you taking all of your own problems back.
But I have been keeping, I realized, a bit of a list. A list of things that make me feel old. I feel them sort of accruing and not just in terms of how many wrinkles and gray hairs. Not just in how much I hate my neck or am shocked by the veins in my hands. It’s more about Eras. And I don’t mean Taylor Swift’s. It’s just a list that says, and I’m sorry to reinforce my own substack title,
You are HERE.
My generation was the last to have a foothold in the analog world, the last to smoke cigarettes in public, the last to know what a Ponderosa felt like, all dim, low lighting, and red carpet. When I meet younger people, I find myself explaining things to them or making references that just go right past them.
So bear with me while I list a few things that make me feel old. If I list them, I will own them instead of them owning me. Or, even better, I’ll look back in 10 years and think… what were you complaining about?
To begin with, there’s the simple amount of time it takes to calculate time. What you thought was 10 years ago was 18. What you thought was 5 years ago was 12 years ago. You try to calculate before and after children and where you lived, but by the time you’re done calculating, your audience has moved on.
When I turned 40, I began receiving a deluge of mail and phone calls about registering for Medicare. A salesman even showed up at my door and luckily did not think that my looks matched the age he expected. I have been unable to extricate myself from this insidious and one-day entirely useful list. I received another letter last week. I wonder if when I’m 60, they’ll say that the offer no longer stands.
I had my last child when I was 40. Picking him up from preschool, I realized that it was me and mostly grandparents waiting at the exit. The day finally came when the teacher called me “grandma” as I dropped him off. I can’t remember the exact words. It was something like, “Tell your grandma bye! Have a good day!” I still brace myself at his parent events and I find myself sort of commiserating in a motherly way with the young mothers for whom this is their only, oldest or middle child.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe just the amount of times I can say, “been there,” makes me feel matronly. Going to a baby shower these days, I ooh and ahh over all the new contraptions they have and find myself echoing my grandma, saying pedantically, “Oh, I could have used THAT.”
I’ve always been an old lady though. My friend at my post-college coffee shop job once posted a tip jar sign that labeled me Jodie, “Queen of Geriatric Radio.”
There was a trend in the late nineties called the granny phase (I explained to a young person who was sorry they asked) and you could wear pillbox hats and cardigans and carry handbags over your forearm. There was an off-beat movie in 2001 called Ghost World that discussed it. I would have sworn it took place in the 90s but no, I was already done with college when I watched it. Time sense is slipping! But yes I did have something of a granny phase and man isn’t that just the epitome of the youth being wasted on the wrong people?
A few months ago I told one of the younger moms I see about going to an internet cafe and she said, “Ooh, an internet cafe! That sounds fun! What’s that?!” I said maybe she’d seen one in a Jason Bourne movie, but that was too old too. I give.
I marvel at the length of time we did NOT have technology like we do now. I think I’ve just surpassed the halfway mark. Really? Half of my life was analog and just over half has been digital.
We went to a restaurant with friends and it was too dark! None of us could see the menu, so we had our phone flashlights out. Then the waiter arrived and I couldn’t understand a word and kept cupping my ear (the way my dad does - it works) to try to amplify her voice. I was so embarrassed until I realized that I was not the only one. When someone complained that the music was too loud, I knew that we had crossed some kind of age threshold.
I’ve switched my prescription to mono-vision (one contact for reading and one for seeing far) and found I had a dead space in the middle, where I couldn’t read my computer or sheet music. I try to explain this to younger people and they just look at me with pity. My eye doctor said that at my age the dead space could still be fixed and not to worry. He added, “You’ve only gone off the first cliff.” Reassuring.
My daughter thought that Radio Shack was a fictitious invention by the people who wrote Young Sheldon.
I find myself just shocked by the amount of traffic on Highway 27 these days. When I was learning to drive, you could go driving on a snow day, just to test the waters. It makes me say the phrase “in my day…” far too often.
And damn you technology for telling me things like I’m 8 years away from being the age of Blanche Devereaux in the Golden Girls. That was how we spent our Friday nights in middle school! Mom and Dad went to a dance and we got to eat Cool Ranch Doritos and watch The Golden Girls.
I quilt.
I remember Perkins restaurant.
I can’t tell how old anyone over 21 is.
I think of our vacations by the technology available (or the fact that my first transatlantic flight had a smoking section) - or the phrase “this is a good connection!” on a collect call!
Story references are dated:
I told my students the other day how I used to program my boombox to play only the quiet songs of Les Miserables while I went to sleep. I thought I was pretty cool for having that.
One time we got stuck in Atlanta and had to drive home so we rented the car that Walter White drove in Breaking Bad and drove to a Kmart, (ok maybe it was a Walmart but there was still one Kmart left, the one where I got my first Bonjovi tape) and got a road atlas and the new double CD of Outkast only to find they had censored the cd.
Now Andre 3000 plays flute music.
If he embraces getting older, why oh why shouldn’t I?
Blanche Devereaux, here I come. (Ok, we all know I’m a Dorothy)
When pinpointing where you are in life, it never hurts to re-read Shakespeare’s The Seven Ages of Man, which reminds us that all the world’s a stage.
Looking for myself in the monologue, I had to scan a little farther down to highlight where I think I am. You know, like those apps or websites that ask you for your birth year? I’ve found it disconcerting lately how I have to scroll a little further each time, further away from the turn of the century, and then still another one, no two?! it couldn’t be three?! swipes to get there.
But I found my “you are here” - I am the justice, now - it rings a bell - always a referee to my kids, a wider waist, a real hair color, the comfort of middle age and security, my wise waxings and observations of what’s modern, what’s past.
I’m just playing my part. Nothing new under the sun.
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
But let’s not talk of sans (without) everything right now. This sandwich generation lady is quite AVEC (with) and ready for the spring.
I would love to hear you share your “senior moments.” Or your take on the Seven Stages. Love to you all.
This all so incredibly, utterly relatable. When I started my job, everyone around me seemed so lold. I'm older now than they were then. Every once in awhile one of my coworkers will remind me that I was hired before they were born. Usually, it's lower grade (and good natured) teasing like saying the music I'm playing reminds them of being in their parent's car. Ack. I also tried to explain how we used to seek out internet cafes when landing somewhere new on a trip. You can imagine how that went.
P.S. Not sure if we're talking about the same chain, but there are still Perkins restaurants here in WI.
We had Oldies stations and Nick-at-Nite, which were all curated for us to know what we should know. Now that everything is available (YouTube, Spotify etc.), you have to already KNOW what you want to know in order TO know. And kids don't.