I'll never tell........

To tell or not….to tell.

I did for a while; I was proud of the fact that I was over 60 and was still a viable, vibrant woman, especially since I learned to dance, putting me in touch with movement and thus,  my body.

I piped up immediately, if someone asked how old I am. The reaction changed, however, as soon as I hit that 6-0 response. No longer did I hear, “What! You don’t look 60!” (I heard that at all ages, right up until this one. At 30, at 40, even at 50. But some key was turned as soon as the big 6-0 carried my birthday cake in, aflame with candles.)

And if a woman happens to be single at 6-0, for whatever reason (and there all kinds of reasons, believe me), heaven help her. Men’s eyes glaze over at the mere mention of a six before ANY number, even the zero. My unfortunate experience with dating sites has proven their point to me: they are for young women.

Not young men, though. Men of all ages, even those with the next digit in THEIR age, have no qualms about filling in that profile page with all kinds of fluff and a photo at least 20 years old (and 20 pounds lighter), knowing all the while that they are looking for a young woman to help them believe their own profile.  Any woman taking their bait who happens to be over 6-0 hears a lot of…… silence. A computer screen is an effective barrier when someone wants to use it that way.

A friend of mine, a woman in her 90s, chided me once for blurting out my age when someone asked. When anyone asked. I thought I could show the world that being a “woman of a certain age” did NOT mean a “shriveled, incontinent, unproductive,  drain on society.” I work out a couple of times a week, I lift more weight than women (and some men) much younger, I work, I dance, I write, I contribute. I am not done yet. Not even close.

But none of that seems to matter. So, I am following my friend’s advice and keeping quiet these days, at least about my age. (I don’t keep quiet about much else, but you already know that, right?)  I can’t unspeak it from all the times I blurted out those digits, but I can hope that people will forget.

Happy birthday to me! And, no, I’m not going to tell you which one it is, either.

Shock and awe.......

 “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

Douglas Adams

As a woman who is aging to perfection, steeped in the wine of time, I am still often shocked--well after I thought there was nothing left to rattle me--as well as in awe of the vagaries of the human race. Some things I know.......

• New jeans with holes up and down the legs, hanging on the rack in the department store, must be an attempt to make us look mindless. 

• When we were 16, a boy who was even 5 years older was taboo. That chasm was huge and not to be crossed on penalty of irate parents, scandalized neighbors, and the law. By the time we were 25, those 5 years had shrunk and they no longer made much difference. In fact, they added a bit of texture to a relationship. But I bet you didn't know that the same 5 years stretch again at the other end of the age spectrum, causing all kinds of mischief for us in our 60s, 70s, and older. Take my word for it.....it isn't pretty. Because.......

•   ....men of all ages want younger women. They just do. The problem is that those men hanging onto the right end of the timeline have difficulty keeping up with a woman younger than they are. In many important ways. And men younger than that same woman aren't interested, because--remember?--they want someone younger, too. Where does that leave me? I'll tell you where: women of a certain age who want a full, true relationship are stranded on that timeline, searching both ends of the spectrum. Alone. 

• Which leads me to this: I should have protected, nurtured, and cherished some of my earlier relationships so I wouldn't be stuck on this darn timeline at all.

• You can enjoy gospel or religious music without believing a word of it. There's just something joyous about it, isn't there?

•  I refuse to listen to any song that has the word "chainsaw" in it. It's just not right.

•  Why do many men refrain from using poor grammar until AFTER you've become invested as a couple? Maybe it's a sign they are truly comfortable with us, their new love. I could stand a little less comfort. Please.

•  When a man agrees in advance to "talk about things that bother us" as you launch a new relationship, his mouth is merely moving.

That's what I know.....at least for now!

You can't get there from here.....

I’ve learned that categorizing people tends to come back to bite you in the butt. Over the course of my life, I have tried really hard to refrain from doing it. I don’t like it myself when I hear sweeping generalizations:

Women drivers……

Those teachers……

Blondes……

And it’s not simply that I happen to fit into two of those groups, either. 

Honest.

But once in a while, events and the subsequent temptation overwhelm me and I succumb. I fall right into the jaws of that trap faster than my “teacher” look can be activated in a classroom full of 13-year olds.

Men and directions.

What’s up with this, anyway? We have dashboard-mounted or handheld GPS tools, computer sites that will find our way for us before we even leave the house, complete with visuals AND text, PLUS the old standby, books of maps under the front seat. (For those under the age of about 30, that’s called an ATLAS.)

Let's take a hypothetical situation, told as if it's true:

I had occasion to ride with a male of my species (I think they’re the same species, although  sometimes I’m not certain) a week or so ago, and we got lost. I had gently asked early on if the driver knew how to get to this particular destination, and was assured with lots of male surety that it was so. I am a wiser woman than I was before aging has perfected me, so I kept quiet. He had printed out a map, just in case, so I thought this would be a piece of cake. Right?

Oops. There was only a map, with no text, so when the map took us to somewhere unrecognizable, we had no backup. There was a nice looking young man in a yard, but he didn’t know that street, either. We started driving in circles, so I retrieved the GPS from the glove box and programmed it as the car started circling the area yet again. Soon, the voice stuck in that box was telling us what to do. Whew! Saved.....

Not so fast. The driver decided he didn’t want to follow the voice. Was going to ignore it. Plus it was talking too loud, so turn the darn thing off, how about it?!

As a teacher, I learned the fine art of playing deaf, mainly to keep myself sane enough to move among the rest of the population at the end of each school day. Came in handy here, I can tell you. The GPS kept talking and I started gently pointing and speaking very softly, hoping that we would get back on track. And there it was, just as if we had never lost it to begin with.Turns out we COULD get there from here.

Technology is wonderful if you use it, isn’t it?

I guess the difference between men and women in this regard is that I always assume I don’t know where I’m going while men always assume they’ve got it under control. Therefore, I’m prepared for all alternatives.

Need I finish that sentence? Hypothetically, of course.....

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once

they have exhausted all other alternatives." ~ Abba Eban

Bringing home the bacon.....

Murky, murky, murky. Life just gets less and less transparent as the years go by. Highly inconvenient, I must admit.

I might have thought....if I had thought about it at all.....that age and the accompanying maturity would lend itself to knowing the answers a litte faster or easier than when we clattered around in our 20s or 30s. Maybe even longer depending on some folks' inability to learn from mistakes.

I'm a very independent woman, a state that is a result of both my personality as well as the circumstances of my life. Raising children on your own will do that, believe me. You learn quickly that there are few people you can truly rely on, maybe even having the axiom, "If you want something done right, do it yourself" stenciled on your living room wall. In bright red.

But the longer you live within that bubble of self-sufficiency the less it appears that you need anyone else or their help for anything at all. Many women build walls that are strong and often tower over those (and I mean men, of course) who get too close, either inadvertantly or with good intentions of being useful.

Soon we begin to believe it ourselves, the fact that we don't need anyone, we can take care of ourselves, thank you very much, so everyone needs to stand back behind that solid concrete wall, that one that we erected over the years for protection.

But the problem is that we DO need each other in lots of ways that have nothing to do with one gender being "weaker" or "stronger."  It has to a lot to do with the undeniable symbiosis inherent in being human in our culture, and less to do with gender inequities that still exist whether we like to think so or not.

I can carry on successfully by myself.....if we're measuring success by dollars and cents. Our culture, though, sometimes traps both men and women into identity roles that we don't even notice after a while. We're so used to clutching either our independence or our deeply ingrained sense of role tightly to our chests that we miss each other completely. The fact that I could support myself was not the same as not needing anything.

I didn't need a man to pay my bills or "bring home the bacon" but I did need someone to support me emotionally. Life is hard, and it is nice to have a shoulder to cry on or a hand to hold as we face the storms together.

Rather than being constrained by the male/female roles of weak vs strong that still slither around the edges of our society, maybe we should just all relax and be human instead. I can ask for help without threatening my independence, and it can be offered without fear of being rebuffed as sexist.

I used to think this was all so clear.

"Limits exist only in the mind."