I'M OLD AND I DON'T CARE!

Today at work, during lunch, still suffering from the cold that won’t die, I was sitting in the breakroom with a number of other staff. I had a huge bowl of wonton soup, a huge glass of water, a huge stack of tissues and I realized that I felt old. So I said, “Shit, I feel old.”

You would have thought I had said that the Cardinals were going to win the series. (Seventh inning, they're down 3-zip.) That Nader would be our next president. (Don't even talk to me about it.) That, horror of all horrors, NBC was going to cancel The West Wing. (No, they're just going to kill of the oldest person on the show.) That’s the kind of group we are. Underdog loving, realistic, liberal women. All at once, their mouths opened and they were all in agreement, “You’re not old.”

What the hell do they think “I feel old" means? It doesn’t mean I’m going to die. It doesn’t mean I’m ready for accordion music and Metamucil or that I'm going to quit plucking those wild hairs that sprout magically in the middle of the night. It means, “I feel old.”

Now the one person there that was older told me she wasn’t old. She’s three years older than I am. “Wait a minute,” I said, “you’re no spring chicken. You’re old. It’s okay to be old. I’m old and I’m just fine with it."

Then the young’uns popped in, “You’re not that old.” So, I’m only a little old, on the verge of being old, just getting ready for the downhill side of the mountain with my head hitting my gravestone with the inevitable hard stop. No, dammit, I’m just old.

Now, that is a privilege that I am going to take, being able to say that I am old. After all, shouldn’t we have our most fun when we are young and old? Who else can get away with crabbiness, food fights, and being cantankerous when the spirit hits. The advantage to being old is that you can do this and you are big enough not to be made to take a nap. Naps are voluntary as an “old person” and enjoyed far more than by a young person.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t times that I feel young. In fact, most of the time I feel like I’m the age of the people I’m with. I can talk Green Day with my grandson, Red Hot Chili Peppers with the twenty somethings, I still like junk food, and I have tattoos and a nose piercing. But, feeling the age of the group you’re with and being the age of the group you’re with are two very distinct things.

I don’t know all of the words to Green Day songs, hell, I blew out my eardrums thirty years ago with Led Zeppelin and can hardly understand the words to songs I've memorized. I understand that the Red Hot Chili Peppers have a certain sexual intrigue to for those post pubescent women, but, they all look twelve years old to me…even if they do sing about “Californication” it isn't going to tempt me into jumping into a mosh pit. And junk food, really, who is going to say they don’t like? Being old means I can eat it and take medication to lower that mean old cholesterol. After all, I’m going to die from something at some point in time and if I get three extra years because I quit eating beef, start to like kale, and think that quinois is the answer everlasting life…well, I don’t know if I want those years are deprived of Chee-tos.

As for the tattoos and the piercings, I didn't get them until I was older. I had established myself as a professional with a strong work ethic, had a good job, knew I could get another good job if needed, and didn’t have to work in the local 7-11 because of my “uniqueness.” After all, one of the tattoos is a heart with my grandson’s name in it. Who could fault me for that? I also had the good sense to get them in places where they wouldn’t change their species, spelling or color saturation with age. The Phoenix on my forearm will not be an ostrich in twenty years and the red heart will on my shoulder won't fade pink as my twilight approaches. Oh, and I can wear a long sleeved shirt so as not to offend the Mayor, and just pull that little old nose post out when I’m next in line for the Presidency.

I don’t understand what is wrong with being old. Even Dove and their Real Beauty Campaign have jumped on the bandwagon. Just like it’s okay not to fit the profile of men or women pictured in all of those glossy magazines. When I say I’m old I don’t want to have to argue about it. After all, some of the other advantages of being old are hard-headedness, grouchiness and an inability to control those arm tremors that might make me hit you up aside your head if you start arguing with me about this again.