My 6-year-old grandson was eyeing me speculatively, an intent look on his face.
“Hey, bud, what are you thinking about?” I asked.
With the candor that only someone under 7 possesses, he replied, “I’m just wondering how old I’m going to be when you die.”
That was good for a guffaw, and I delivered. I have used the line countless times since in demonstrating my grandkids’ precociousness.
But I also mentally added another log on a pile of growing evidence.
Starting with my family, and then way, way beyond – the world has been on a campaign to make me feel old.
My dad was first in, with a comment he made years ago. OK, let’s make that decades ago.
“Hey, daughter, you’re 35! Guess that makes you middle-aged!”
Later on, “Forty, already? Man, alive, you’re getting old!”
And then, “Oh, my gosh, half-C, half-C!”
I always gave him a weak smile, but I wasn’t grinning on the inside. If he had a kid as old as me, what did that say about him?
But he was just twitting me (not tweeting, although he popped off some of his jibes when he was about the age of our tweeter-in-chief’s 71 years). If it paddled my dad’s boat to make his kids feel like they’d joined the Older Than Dirt Club, so be it. After all, his own dirt had to be carbon-dated.
The movie theater clerk joined the conspiracy when she asked if I wanted the senior ticket price. But around the same time, a manager at the rec center my husband and I planned to join gave me a boost. He asked if we were going to be enrolling our youngsters, too.
I bragged about that, but my sister said, “He could have meant your grandkids, or maybe he was just trying to sell a membership.”
Thanks, sis.
An interview on talk radio the other day was an underscore on the subject, although not meant for me specifically, just my age group. An author who was explaining his bent toward science fiction said:
“Oh, I grew up watching ‘Star Trek’ on TV.” He paused and laughed. “Obviously, ‘Next Generation,’ not the original!”
I guess listeners were supposed to realize that someone as young as him couldn’t possibly have been alive when the original 79 “Star Trek” episodes started airing in 1966. I was alive, I admit, but I was very young.
There’s a line people walk across in their journey of life, and I noticed recently that I had crossed it. Those of you who actually remember “Romper Room” and Saturday repeats of “The Bowery Boys” might be old enough to have had the same epiphany.
A dear friend introduced me to the line. She’s nearly two decades older than me and was explaining why she was leaving behind a shared hobby she no longer enjoyed.
“At my age,” she said, “you weigh how you use your time. You only have so much of it, and you don’t want to spend it in ways that don’t edify your life.”
This was several years ago and I sort of understood, but I didn’t really get it. She had crossed the line, but I hadn’t yet.
Now there is more water under my own bridge and, I, too, am weighing my choices. When there’s more behind than ahead, you don’t want to waste your moments.
And don’t believe that stuff about 50 being the new 30, 60 being the new 40. Older is older, and euphemisms don’t really provide much comfort.
However, while there are plenty of downsides to aging (I’m not going to list them because that might depress and scare those who are growing up watching “Star Trek: Discovery”), there are also gifts.
Primary among them is recognizing the precious value of each day.
My grandson is five years older since he made his comment. Before you know it, he’ll be pulling out gray hairs. Hey, it’s a circle.
And this actually happened when the boy’s dad turned 35.
My husband sidled up alongside his aging offspring and said, “I guess you’re middle-aged now!” and gave him a grin and a slap on the back.
I decided to go ahead and grin myself.
Join the club, son. March along until you reach your own epiphany. It’s not so bad on the other side of the line.
