Don’t misunderstand—I’m not saying I am old. But a few people in my life have been telling me I am for about the last ten years. People like my grandchildren. Well, of course, you say. Short people like that always think taller people with gray hair, saggy skin and wrinkles are old. Exactly! I mean, sometimes strangers treat me like I’m old, too, especially teenage clerks who call me “honey” and hope I don’t trip on my way out the door. But I just look at their purple hair and wonder what’s happened to the younger generation. I don’t think that makes me old. That makes me terrified. Or intolerant. Depends on your point of view. And whether you’re an old person or a teenager.
I remember my sixteenth birthday. Don’t be surprised. I’m still young enough to have a memory. Usually. Sometimes. Never mind. My sixteenth birthday. I wasn’t driving yet, but my best friend was. My family took us out to a pricey cowboy restaurant where there was sawdust all over the floor and a country band played live music. I didn’t have a boyfriend, but my best friend did. The waitress took our orders, found out it was my birthday, and sighed the way old people sigh. “Oh, I remember when I turned sixteen,” she said. “I wish I was sixteen again.”
I just wished I could drive and had a boyfriend and that old people would stop saying they wished they were young like me. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Now that I’ve seen the age of sixteen three times and then some (stop doing the math—I already told you that people think I’m old), I don’t know why anyone would ever want to be sixteen again. It would mean going back to high school and homework and algebra and insecurity and pimples and hormones and allowances and house rules and SATs. And dreaming I was standing naked in the school gym on the first day of school, which was pretty much the same dream I had every August when a new school year rolled around.
Clearly, I was never one of the cool kids.
Do you really want to have to relive everything you went through to become the wise, experienced, intelligent person you are today? Everything? Me neither. It’d be a gift to be so young again I could take it for granted that I was immortal so I could enjoy doing stupid things without dying or worse. But eventually I discovered I do have an expiration date and, honestly, I don’t want to face that realization for the first time ever again.
There are advantages to having stayed alive this long. For example, I’m glad I’ve driven so many miles now that I can read another driver’s body language from a half a mile away and get off the freeway before I wind up in the middle of the accident they’re about to cause. But look how long it took me to gather all that experience! Sixteen times three and then some.
I’m glad I don’t have to relearn how to sacrifice a year or more of sleep because there’s a new infant living in my house and I misplaced the instruction manual they came with. Do you remember that learning curve? If not, don’t feel bad. There are entire months in my childrearing experience that are completely missing, too, probably misplaced with that phantom manual during a three a.m. feeding. I used to love going to baby showers until I had a baby. Now I feel genuine sympathy for the blushing, excited mom-to-be who has no idea that it’ll take six months before she figures out how to put on her makeup in sixty seconds or ignore the screaming baby in the other room because she has to pee and she’s going to take a minute for herself and do it.
I’m telling you, not only is sixteen not what it’s cracked up to be, but twenty-six isn’t either.
There are one or two things I miss about being younger, though. Energy and my body. I don’t know how I misplaced two important things like that when I could really use them at my age. My husband retired a few years ago and, saint that he is, decided to take on some of my home responsibilities so I could enjoy retirement, too. Now he does all the vacuuming, unloads the dishwasher, makes the bed, cooks whenever I relinquish the kitchen to him, and helps me do the laundry. Every once in a while he can’t be around to help, and then I have to do all that stuff by myself. I need to take a break every ten minutes just to catch my breath and pull it off. How did I turn into such a marshmallow so fast? I used to do all of that in one day plus make dinner, wrangle kids, volunteer with the PTA, and herd the family into the car for church meetings four times a week. On six hours of sleep and no caffeine.
I think my body was pre-programmed on a sliding scale and my younger self stole the lion’s share of my oomph. That’s another thing I don’t miss about being young. Boy, was I ever selfish.
And my body. I don’t want to be too hard on something that’s always been there for me, but every time I watch Dancing With The Stars I remember that I always wanted to learn to dance and now it’s pretty much too late. You need oomph for that, too. And stamina. And a room with no mirrors. Or other people watching. Like I said, not gonna happen. I should have taken it up when I was twenty-six, but I was too busy going to church and giving up sleep for children. And Baptists don’t believe in dancing anyway. That’s why I’m not a Baptist anymore. So I can watch Dancing With The Stars and dream of moving my hips like that so maybe I could take up vacuuming again.
My best friend is forever telling me that growing old isn’t for sissies. It’s kind of a confusing compliment. First of all, I’m now nearly a thousand words into whining about the lousy part of aging, so clearly I’m a sissy. Therefore, I don’t qualify for growing old. On the other hand, as Hallmark loves to point out on that redundant birthday card I get almost every year, growing old beats the heck out of the alternative. It’s kind of a lose-lose situation until I remember that thing about experience and then I feel better about myself.
Take childrearing, for example. My little brood of ankle biters grew up despite my inexperience as their mother and have gone on to live perfectly normal lives of their own where they are now raising their own ankle biters. I’ve heard it said that raising children is a career you’re not qualified for until the kids are grown, but by then you’re out of a job and unemployable. (See the *oomph paragraph above.) The whole time I was mothering my tiny herd, I felt like I was winging it from one catastrophe to the next. Even though that baby manual had been MIA for at least fifteen years, I knew if it ever turned up and I leafed through it there would have been no chapter on how to handle the unique challenges I was supposed to guide my kiddos through. Just as soon as we figured out one solution, a whole new situation would surface and there I’d be, lost in the dark and back on my knees again with no manual.
But once they left home, and especially when they became parents, I discovered something remarkable about myself. I was wise. I don’t know how it happened or when, but good things would come out of my mouth that surprised even me. All that pressure and confusion and frustration and joy and heartache and victory that happened day after day for fifty years had transformed itself and now I was, at some level, wise. Sometimes my kids think so, too, but it’s okay if we’re not on the same page about that all the time. Suddenly I realized that I graduated from Childrearing 101 not only with most of my gray hair, but with some life skills and insights I didn’t know I was gaining. It’s not particularly useful to anyone most of the time, but it’s incredibly surprising to me. I just wish I’d understood then what I understand now.
True, timing has turned out to be way off, but that’s not really my problem. Once in a while when my kids bounce things off of me, I get the chance to contribute something helpful for them to consider. And in that moment when we’re all adults and they help me with their point of view as much as I am able to offer mine, it doesn’t matter who has the most energy or the most wrinkles. We’re in this game together and it’s a relief that we don’t have to do it alone.
It’s true that if I had it to do all over again (which is something old people say), I’d do a lot of things differently. I think. I don’t really know because that little matter of energy and the yet-undiscussed issue of patience is still a game changer in the world of immature children and inexperienced parents. It’s easy, even though I’m supposedly wise, to forget the utter exhaustion parents live with day in and day out until one day they’re out of a job and the kids are busy with their own lives and they, like us, have more than enough time to sit around and ponder regrets.
The thing is, I learned some stuff while I grew old alongside my growing children and it’s valuable to me. I used to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm when I was sixteen but was sadly lacking in much sense. When I was twenty-six I had more sense and still a lot of energy, but the enthusiasm was ebbing away with the kind of hits life continually lobs at our hearts. Now that I am sixteen times three and then some, I’ve made a little more sense out of life and enthusiastically applaud those who have energy. It’s the best I can do.
So, cheers to purple hair and youthfulness. They’ll be in charge before they know it, earning their own wisdom the hard way while somebody else calls them “honey” and hopes they don’t trip on their way out the door. It’s the circle of life.
I’ve earned these wrinkles and a tiny amount of wisdom. It’s about time I started appreciating the compliment, “you’re kind of old,” and started responding the right way.
“Thank you.”
With thanks to my inspirational friend from Tucson who gave me permission to use any photo of her that I chose. She's younger than me and still learning wisdom. ;)
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