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)

The Italian actress Claudia Cardinale was the guest of honor at a local film festival last year, and I had the chance to exchange a few words with her. She was surprised and amused by my story: “Ms. Cardinale, we have never met before but you have had a positive influence on my life. You see, my name is Claudia too, but it’s not a common name in the United States, and it was far less common in the 1960s when I was growing up. When I would introduce myself to people, they didn’t always catch my name, so I would say, “Claudia, like Claudia Cardinale.” THEN they would understand, and sometimes they would make an appreciative comment about my namesake.

“Your fame and beauty gave me a lot of caché,” I told her. “So I wanted to thank you for having given the name Claudia such a positive connotation.”

Ms. Cardinale smiled at me for having shared this tidbit of appreciation. That got me to thinking about the impact people can have on you without their being aware of it. That happens often enough when you are young, but it can happen when you are in middle age as well. For example, a man I’ll call “good looking Tony”— or, where I live, “Il Bell’Antonio.”

“Antonio” is not his real name, and the eponymous film of 1960 starring Marcello Mastroianni (and, ironically, Claudia Cardinale) is not so much about a man’s beauty as it is about repressive Sicilian society, but the moniker of Il Bell’Antonio, the handsomest man in town, the one all the girls lust for and all their mothers do too, is appropriate.

”Antonio” is 60-something, a year or two younger than my husband. His wife is exactly my age, have been married the same number of years, and our respective spouses have aged with grace (his wife) and dignity (my husband). But “Antonio” is in a different league altogether. He is tallish and well dressed, has abundant silvery-grey hair, a flat stomach, firm jaw, and twinkling blue eyes. He looks like something out of central casting, Hollywood’s idea of the silver-haired Italian business executive, “of a certain age” to be sure, but aged in such an amazing bottle.

Even better, he–– like Marcello Mastroianni in the film–– is apparently offhandedly unaware of his appearance. He is not a strutting peacock or Don Giovanni, adjusting his tie and fidgeting with his hair; he talks sports with the guys and current affairs with colleagues and doesn’t flirt outrageously with the bimbettes, though well he might.

Sometimes he talks to me, as we are colleagues. In our city, we head our respective alumni associations and often attend each others’ events, so at least once a month we find ourselves at the same receptions . . . and the effect he has on me is always the same. I feel tongue-tied, awkward, the four-eyed class bookworm suddenly facing the captain of the football team and the president of the student council all in one. Barbra Streisand sighing after golden boy Robert Redford. My cheeks turn red, my hands are clammy, and my heart is pounding. Every word I utter feels like a screeching banality that I regret as soon as it escapes my lips.

“Antonio” seems unaware of the effect he has on me. Thank goodness. He smiles, banters, then nods and makes his way through the crowd, working the room with charming efficiency. My heart is in my throat and if I take a step at that moment, I am going to fall down flat on my unaccustomed high heels.

Knowing that I may see him at this or that event, I try to prepare myself in advance. I wear conservatively fashionable outfits, and heels in which navigation is possible without undue effort. I practice conversations on topics of mutual interest and comments on relevant current affairs. But it doesn’t work.

A few weeks ago, attending a lecture, I almost bumped into “Antonio” talking on a cell phone at the entrance to the event. I was so unnerved that I came close to falling across the marble floor. It would have been a spectacular entrance in a teen dating movie, but I am old enough to be osteoporosis-challenged. Falling on a marble floor is not a good idea.

“Antonio” flashed me a brilliant smile, extended his hand to steady my wobbling legs, then turned back to his phone call. I felt like a fish, my mouth gulping and exhaling air in a permanent O-shape.

Oh, this is so embarrassing at my age, so ridiculous, I scold myself. We are not talking love here (I am devoted to my spouse), we are not talking lust (post-menopausal passion is a pale imitation of its estrogen-rich equivalent), we are talking about a woman approaching her sixth decade acting like a 16-year-old girl.

But beyond the surface embarrassment and awkwardness, beyond the age-inappropriate “girlishness” of my behavior, down deep inside I admit that I revel in my discomfiture and am grateful to Antonio for making me feel this way. When I stammer and blush, it means I haven’t lost the ability to be thrown off track. Feeling like 16 may be strange and unexpected, but it means I don’t feel like 60, whatever THAT is supposed to be.

It means that the emotional world of middle age doesn’t have to be bland and predictable; it can throw you off balance, render you speechless, throw the fish out of water and into the boat, gasping for air. It means there can still be a surprise or two in store, maybe a road less traveled. The point is I still have a future, and that is something worth smiling about.

Someday I have to tell Il Bell’Antonio what he has done for me, the smile of surprising possibilities he has given me. Yes, I will do it someday, like I did with Claudia Cardinale . . . when my hands unclam and my tongue unties.