What Has Surprised Me Most About Old Age

When I was growing up, I didn’t think of my funny, vivacious mom as old. Not until she did. When she was only 50, she started to almost obsessively notice younger women, remarking on how pretty they were. Then she’d always stare mournfully at herself in the mirror and add, “I was really pretty and young once, too.”

My mom was one of the few women in our neighborhood who worked, a teacher who had her own money. But to me, the most alarming part of my mother’s aging was that she began to reflect as if every good part of her life was behind her.

“I’m so old,” she moaned at every birthday. She sat around with the other teachers remarking on how they couldn’t compete with all the younger, prettier ones. She retired at 75 and almost immediately became depressed. Every conversation revolved around how she had lived her life rather than how she was going to live it going forward. And she began to focus more of her attention on me, making sure I understood the obstacles women faced in her day as they aged.

She would say: You got married early. You had kids. If you had a job, it had to be one where you’d be home before the kids, before the husband. And of course you needed a husband with a good job, so there’d be money for you from insurance after he died, which would surely be before you did. Then came widowhood, and the rest of your lonely, constrained life.

My mom had been a vivid dresser, but now she insisted she had to wear more “age-appropriate” clothing, even though the things she loved looked great on her. Her wild red hair began to resemble the helmets my grandmothers wore, and she began complaining of ailments. She had no muscle tone. She had more wrinkles.

“That’s old age for you,” she told me. There were more doctors’ visits, a parade of meds. No one in her generation exercised, though my mom did walk around the block and later in the local mall. And they certainly didn’t eat right because no one believed that food had anything to do with health. I began to worry: Was this my future, too? Was this everyone’s future?

In my 30s, I began noticing more older people around me, and it scared me. I didn’t want to be one of them! I didn’t want to go for the early-bird specials. I didn’t want to wear housedresses or have helmet-hair or be shut away in a nursing home like my grandmothers had been.

One day, while my mother was criticizing me for dressing too young, she remarked that growing up, I’d always given her trouble by being way too independent and not following her lead.

And it was then that I realized I didn’t have to grow old the way she had. Instead, I could make rebellious decisions so my 60s, 70s and beyond would feel very different.