OH, THE BEAUTY of the Golden Years! Celebrated throughout our American culture. The warmth, the abundance of wisdom, the wonderful rosy glow of a well-lived life. The just and well-earned rewards.
I grew up with that, as we all did. But when the time arrived, I learned that the honey-colored years are not truly golden, but a color closer to the stamped-down hay in a horse stall.
Take ailments. You get older, your ailments are entitled to the dignity of proper respect. But today ailments are a joke. You get no sympathy. An ailment used to mean something. Our parents would never have tolerated it; they’d get massive support whenever they had a tiny hitch in their giddy-up. Their friends would bring them casseroles! But today that’s all gone. Like house visits by doctors. You bring up your ailment and all it does is encourage the poseurs around you to try and top your ailment with theirs. Pinkeye! Tennis elbow! Fallen arches! Like it’s a competition. Very disappointing.
And how about respect? Where are the deep-seated respect and reverence due to the old ones of our tribe? Do the youngsters address you with honorifics? Do they call you Wise Elder? Absolutely not. Instead, they use a four-letter word, the ugliest word in the English language.
And how about traveling? The Golden Years were supposed to be about finally getting to see the world. Finding those secret beaches and hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Budapest or Tangiers or Montevideo. But as you get older, traveling becomes all about, well, travel. Too much time spent on logistics or worse, being herded around in a doddering group by smarmy tour guides. Listening to bellyaching about the hotels, the hot and jostling trains, the astonishing fact that some people don’t speak English, even if you say the simplest words really loudly. Travel isn’t what it is cracked up to be.
And when you’ve visited Machu Picchu and come down to breakfast in a little pensión in Cuzco, is the convo about the magnificent city in the mountains? About the flute music played by shepherds, so eerie at high altitude? Of course not. It’s about whether you slept even a minute in the swaybacked bed and how they never turn down the music even though people are trying to sleep. And when those issues have been sufficiently run into the ground, the convo turns, as it always does, to how the group’s digestion is faring. Some can’t get it going at all. Others are way too active. And that leads to deep reflection on the bathrooms in the pensión and all of their failings.
And what about mellowing? Isn’t that the crowning pinnacle of the Golden Days? You learn to rise above all those petty hatreds and annoyances that made your blood boil when you were in the thick of things. Don’t they all fade away as you experience a karmic acceptance and the wise beneficence that comes from your many years of struggle? Not exactly. All you have done is transform hatreds and annoyances from things that were actually hateful and annoying to the petty dramas of logistics and dead times that now animate your life.
Yeah, the wonder of the Golden Years is a story sold by a snake oil salesperson of the most slippery kind. And the wisdom that comes with aging? You’ve gained just enough to see it was all a con.
You could be really bummed at the bait and switch, but there is one thing that you have going for you. The nicks and pings of the years have allowed your sense of humor to develop a sharp edge, so incisive that now you see and appreciate the irony and the sarcasm and piercing insight of your friends, especially the ones who are even older than you.
That sense of humor is key, because when you are done with the Golden Years’ nonsense, you do what you have always done.
You pick yourself up.
You fare forward.
Sometimes you struggle, sometimes your feet are light.
But almost always, you remember how glad you are to be on the journey.
What does a longer lifespan mean to you? Talented local columnists tag-team every Friday to tackle the challenges that inform your choices — whether you’re pushing 17 or 70. Recent Stanford Center on Longevity Visiting Scholar Susan Nash looks at life experiences through an acerbic personal lens, while other longtime writers take the macro view to examine how society will change as the aging population grows ever larger. Check in every Friday to expand your vision of living the long game and send us your feedback, column suggestions and ideas for future coverage to newsroom@baycitynews.com.