Is being “old” a shameful, depleted state to be resisted? At 81, I think not | Opinion

I was bagging an order for a family at the Safeway on McHenry Avenue in Modesto where I work when I noticed their 7-year-old daughter intently staring up at me. Without preamble, she blurted out, “You’re old!” I smiled, looked down at her and said, “I’m glad you noticed. I love being old!”

She gave me a skeptical, questioning look, so I responded with, “You know what you have to do if you don’t want to get old, don’t you?” She had no ready answer. Her 9-year-old sister who stood nearby emphatically offered, “You have to die!”

“Right!” I said, “so, I love being old!”

But is not dying the only good thing about being old? And is “old” pejorative in and of itself? Is being old a shameful, depleted state to be resisted, denied, cloaked in make-up and obfuscated in every possible way? I think not.

Old is not a four-letter word.

At 81 years of age, I am a single woman watching with fascination as worlds unfold, children grow, families gather, people struggle to answer age-old questions and stretch to accommodate newness in thinking and embrace change to make us better, more conscious pilgrims in the journey through this life.

I have been given the gift of time, good health, a still-sharp mind and inveterate curiosity about this world and about people, people, people. I ask questions. I listen. I encourage. I am so very secure in my own “me-ness” that I rarely feel the need to apologize for inviting myself into the lives of people wherever I find them. This, I would not be able to do without the wisdom and patience that living long and loving deeply brings.

Am I done? No, I’m not finished. I have a saying taped to my kitchen cabinet: “And now what?” At any age, I believe that is the question we must ask.

What can I do next? What can I contribute to the ongoing flow of what makes us human and enriches and completes us? Perhaps the fact that I am old makes it ever more possible for me to pause long enough to contemplate the big questions.

I am not raising a family. That’s done.

I am not anxious about finances. I have enough.

I am not overwhelmed by to-dos or must-dos.

And so, I am able to give thought to, “And now what?”

The summer I was 67 years old, I was “Leafy,” the mascot for the Salinas Packers Semi-pro Baseball Team. No one ever knew who Leafy was. At the end of the season, the young men on the team came together and said, “Leafy, you have to show us who you are. You’re the best Leafy we’ve ever had!” It was a secret. And it was worth keeping. I loved the idea that spirit and joy conquered the physical.

My manager at Safeway allows me to wear costumes on holidays. Last Christmas, I wore my Santa’s Elf outfit. The next day, very early and in the dark, a man approached me in the parking lot. He asked me if I was the woman who had worn the costume the day before. I smiled and said, “Yes, that was me.” He went on to say that he had been driving by on McHenry Avenue with his granddaughter when she exclaimed excitedly, “Grampa, I know where Santa is! He’s at Safeway! I just saw his elf!”

The gentleman then expressed his wish that there were more moments of pure joy and delight like that moment of enchantment for his granddaughter. For me, that’s “pay day.”

We have to have money in the bank to make the mortgage payment. But joy, delight, secrets that mesmerize — those really are without price. And, sometimes, if we are very lucky, we live long enough to have many of those pay days.

Old is priceless.

This story was originally published July 30, 2023 at 6:00 AM.