Tag: reflections on aging

I had a reminder on Facebook of a post I made a year ago today. Here it is:

So, I went to the grocery store yesterday and was stopped by an old guy sitting on the bench outside. He asked me if I thought I was going to go grocery shopping. I said, “That was the plan, why?” He asked me if I noticed the condition of the parking lot. I said yes, and I figured it was my lucky day. No crowds. He went on to explain that the store had lost power and they weren’t letting anyone in. He was waiting though, because he’d already been back twice. He offered for me to join him on the bench. I thanked him and headed on home instead. The point of this story? The very first sentence: I was stopped by an old guy. An OLD guy? In retrospect, I’m pretty darned sure he was MY age. *sigh*

I say to myself, did I not learn ANYTHING from this experience? Because I still do it. Still say, that old person, that old guy, that old lady. As a descriptor, I suppose it works, but in terms of respecting age, a long life lived, I suspect it falls short. At the very least, it’s high time I recognized the gray in my own head.

Continue reading “Aging and the ‘old’ word”