I recently spent an hour on the phone with a very helpful Apple support person. He worked some magic making it possible for him to see my screen and then he asked me to scroll down and select my birthyear. I scrolled…and scrolled…and scrolled. And at some point during my scrolling, he said with surprise, “Oh, you’re….” Then he stopped. I think he was about to say I’m really good at scrolling.
Interestingly, scrolling a dropdown birthyear menu was mentioned in an article a friend just sent me titled, “People Are Sharing the Moment They Realized They’re Old.” It didn’t make me feel old, but I may feel differently if I ever run out of numbers to scroll.
Someone else said they realized they were old the first time their barber asked them if they wanted their eyebrows trimmed. That hasn’t happened to me, though my dental hygienist once pulled a whisker out of my chin for me. That didn’t make me feel old either, just grateful.
Another person said they realized they were old when their “Check knee” light came on. And someone else said it was when they started considering the possibility of injury before engaging in physical activity. I laughed and went out rollerblading. Not really.
“The Age When Most People Start to Feel Old” was the headline on another article forwarded to me. If you guessed 90 as I did, good for you! You’re obviously optimistic, in great shape and young at heart. Also wrong. At least according to a survey commissioned by Foster Grant which found most people begin to feel old at 47. What? I don’t feel old and I’m 49—and then some.
Survey-takers listed vision problems, involuntarily grunting when getting out of a seat and not being on TikTok as factors that made them feel old. I’ve had poor eyesight since I was born. I don’t see not being on TikTok as a sign of aging. I see it as a sign of wisdom. And if I grunt when I get out of a chair that’s none of your business.
Another article on the subject said people feel old when their medical professionals start looking their children’s age—or their grandchildren’s. I say they’re comparing themselves to the wrong crowd. If you want to feel young, compare yourself to politicians.
People in all three articles mentioned music as the reason they feel old. For some it was having their preferred music referred to as the golden oldies. For others it was not recognizing any of the bands their grandkids listen to or not having someone younger recognize their own favorite musicians. That doesn’t bother me. If a younger person looks at me blankly when I mention the Moody Blues or Dire Straits, I don’t think it’s because I’m old. I think it’s because they’re uninformed and have poor taste in music.
But a lot of people are trying to make me feel old. The employee at the entrance to a state park my husband and I visited gave us the senior discount without asking if we qualified for it.
A young woman recently called me cute. There are only a few things twenty-something women describe as cute: babies, boyfriends, pets, clothes and old people. Or rather, people they think are old, which, when you’re her age, is almost everyone.
And an acquaintance asked me how old I am and when I told him he said, “Yeah, I thought you were getting up there.” And I’d told him I was 49 too.
Dorothy Rosby is the author of Alexa’s a Spy and Other Things to Be Ticked off About, Humorous Essays on the Hassles of Our Time and other books. Contact her at www.dorothyrosby.com/contact.