Age Comes In On Little Rats’ Feet
We’re fast becoming the oldest generation that’s still active, still fit, still working, still aspiring to new heights. So why do younger people think some of us are out to pasture? Claudia Flisi doesn’t like it one bit, which is why she wrote, “Age Comes In On Little Rats’ Feet.”
It wouldn’t be accurate to say that old age — if a boomer can even be described that way — crept up by surprise. I have sensed it coming in many ways.
I heard it coming, with the occasional creak of bones. I detected it every time I tried to clip my toenails. (Which reminds me: how is it that, with my body shrinking, the distance between my hands and my toes has increased by an order of magnitude? It has gotten so much harder to care for my feet at the same time that these extremities cry out for additional attention.)
I felt it coming too, as the flesh on my upper arm loosened so I could feel it jostling for a stronghold, then giving up and yielding to gravity. And I saw it coming, more and more every day, when I looked in the mirror. I just avoided looking as much as possible.
Being out and about though, I couldn’t altogether avoid the mirror. But maybe it doesn’t matter, because somehow in the last two or three years I have stopped being visible. It’s like when a woman is pregnant; others know you are there, but they assume you are not in the game. You may be working, you may even have a position of respect, but you aren’t taken as seriously because your physical situation is an obvious restraint.
Well, when you have passed a certain age, it’s no different. You are there, but you aren’t REALLY there. You aren’t a player. You are irrelevant.
And the physical changes, evident though they are, don’t feel as bad as the psychological ones. A few months ago, within the space of two weeks, two different people asked me what I “used to do” for a living. They made the assumption that I was retired, that I didn’t need to work anymore. Their offhand remarks were a dagger. I had a sudden flash of a 59-year-old woman fishing for business (in my case, looking for writing assignments) as if she were a 30-year-old, ridiculously competing with 30-year-olds for work. I no longer felt energized and experienced; I felt… pathetic.
Last week I was having coffee with a 40-something fellow who was about to head an alumni association. We were meeting because he wanted to know what I was doing as head of a similar group. He then explained, “The person who used to head my alumni association is very capable but is at the end of a career and we need officers who are still fully immersed in theirs.”
“Oops,” I thought to myself, “Does he realize what he is telling me? That I am too old to be doing what I am doing?” So I said, aloud, “I probably should be stepping down from my group too. We need younger blood. But I should mention that networking is useful for people at any age, not only the youngest ones. I have to network all the time as a self-employed professional.”
“Yes, of course,” he murmured expansively. “But you already have a network, and a good one. At this point you are only trying to enrich it. The young alumni need to build their network from scratch.”
No! WAIT A MINUTE! Me too, I am still scratching, nowhere near the point of having “arrived” and therefore entitled to a little coasting. Some of my friends, yes — those who have retired from companies they headed, or departments they guided, or enterprises they created from scratch. The economics of their situations aside (because the economics have changed for everyone this year), they can safely feel that they have grabbed the brass ring and held it in their hands. I can’t. It’s still out there waiting for me, and I have got to pursue it with all the vigor that my softened muscles and slightly stiffened limbs can muster.
Discussing this with a 50-ish colleague, I lamented some career choices that I had made in the context of marriage and family. “If I knew then what I know now about how successful careers are built, maybe I would have focused more on work instead of trying to straddle job and family and pretending that I could succeed equally well with both.”
My colleague demurred. “Friends I know made just that choice. They gave up marriages and children to concentrate exclusively on their careers. And now they find themselves unemployed. Their companies pushed them out or went out of business or merged with someone else. All these friends have are scrapbooks with some clips. You have clips and kids, a spouse and community accomplishments. You chose wisely, in my view.”
That perspective on success versus failure did catch me by surprise. But it’s hard to argue with facts.
Based in Italy, Claudia writes for international publications and corporations.
See www.flisi.net, Pink magazine, Diary of a French Facelift and www.worldreviewer.com/member/claudia-flisi (for riding vacations)
Category: Baby Boomers, Claudia Flisi, Lifestyle
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How right you are: I wish your observations were slanted rather than true, but alas…I feel I can say this as I, too, am in the over-55 category and have an identical read on our position in the working world…
You got a long ways to go. I am 70 years old and still going after the brass ring. Life just keep getting better and better. You, yourself, makes it that way.