Ageism is Old

You’re as young as you’ll ever be. This is when you’re supposed to be having fun. Seize the day, seize your youth. This is the time of your life. 

I got scared over the holidays. See, I turned twenty - a frightening concept for a former teenager. Two decades, I realised. I am not sure if I am living my life to the fullest. What if I’m not? What if “things” aren’t happening to me now? What if I’m not having the time of my life – how do I know? Is this it? Is it my only chance to have fun because life can only be fun when you’re young?

I went home for the summer and spent some time with my grandparents. I heard a lot of ‘when you’ll be my age…’, ‘when time comes…’ and ‘for someone my age…’ One day my grandma asked me to help her find a new pair of shorts for the summer – shorts not short enough to expose her knees. Asked why, she replied that she has a bad case of ‘old, dry knees, and it really doesn’t look good for someone her age to be exposing her knees.’ God help us when we all fall victim to the dry knees epidemic.

Jerry García on the older side

A few days later my mom took me, my sister and her sister to a Sting concert in Kraków. He is now 71 and has a body most boys I know wouldn’t be ashamed of and many would be envious of. He gave a beautiful concert and joked with his band on stage, interacted with the audience and left us all truly mesmerised. I had finished Annie Ernaux’s Years a week prior and it really got me thinking. Why is it that youth is so glamorised and old age so feared? Why do some things become inappropriate once we enter our thirties, forties or fifties?

Do not get me wrong, I am not denying the inevitable decrease in mobility and eventual cognitive decline that comes with age. Perhaps this is the reason behind the stigma on ageing. People begin to lose their ‘usefulness’. In the United Kingdom it is illegal to ask about someone’s age or date of birth in job applications, unless the job has an age constraint. I am unsure whether this measure aims to minimise ageism or, on the contrary, conceal the shame related to age. Or maybe, it is the fear of death and overwhelming nostalgia that makes old people wish they were young. But in the end, if you fear the ending of the movie, do you ever enjoy it while it lasts?

Jagger on the older side

What does it mean to get old, anyway? I know people in their twenties sporting grey hair. I have a grandma who is 84 years old and uses her smartphone to read gossip sites. My grandpa of the same age walks about ten kilometres a day and each year he looks up the national high school final exams, indulging his ex-teacher curiosity. Joni Mitchell is 78 and played her first concert in twenty years this June at the Gorge Amphitheatre. Mick Jagger was 73 when his youngest son was born. Joe Biden is 80 and president, looking to run again (though this example may undermine my claim of old-age vitality).

Getting old should make a person a connoisseur of time, a collector of memories. The longer, no, the more you live, the more impressive your collection becomes. Knees that survived over sixty years of life should be a reason for pride, not shame. Experience makes us more refined, as we get richer by the minute. It is a far brighter outlook, as something to look forward to, rather than meeting an impending deadline. We have time, either ahead of us, or behind us, in the form of memories. Either way, it’s ours.

Besides, if we understand time as another dimension, then ageism is nothing but a different kind of fat shaming - and that’s just out of style. In fact, it’s been out of style for ages. Billie Burke, a Broadway actress of the 40s, had it right back then already when she said that ‘age is of no importance unless you’re cheese.’

The important question I decided to ask myself, devastated about no longer being a teenager and inspired by a scribble I saw in a pub, was: are you living or are you dying? And really that seems to be the only thing worth worrying about. No matter how long the road ahead is, one should just try to make it worthwhile and travel with the right people. Maybe old age is like dessert, a perfectly satisfactory ending of a feast. You don’t need a sweet tooth, just good company.