When you have more yesterdays than tomorrows
Before I knew it, I had become a septuagenarian—over 70 years old and counting. I am older now than my teachers had been back in elementary school. Older than the fearsome Reverend Mother in boarding school, in whose office I spent many an hour being scolded for some transgression or other, and who, I thought, was positively ancient. Older even than the editor of the newspaper where I first worked. Older than my mother was when I got married. And certainly I’m older than my father had been when he passed away at age 65. It feels like now I’m the oldest person in the room, the one who’s positively ancient.
When I first started working, everyone in the newsroom was older than me. I was the rookie reporter who was given the corniest assignment that nobody else in the staff wanted to do. Interview Mickey Mouse. Attend an old ladies’ luncheon. Deliver a check to a sick person in a distant province. Being young, I thought those were exciting stories to cover. Until I grew older and realized that all along I’d been had; those were corny assignments and I was the innocent newbie on whom they had dumped those unenviable tasks.
By the time I became an editor myself, everyone in the office was younger than I was. My one consolation was that now I was the one deciding who was going to write the corniest story that no one else wanted to do.
Such is the circle of life. First you’re young, energetic, eager to make your way in this world—but there’s an older generation above you who’s bossing you around. Then you progress into becoming the older generation yourself, and you start bossing around those younger than you. Except that you no longer have the energy and the excitement of youth. The years sneak up on you and when you aren’t looking—bam! All of a sudden, you’re over 70.
One upside of being forgetful is that I don’t mind watching reruns on TV — because I’ve already forgotten the plots of the stories.
I often ask myself, where did the years go? To paraphrase a Broadway song, wasn’t it yesterday when the children were young? How swiftly fly the years. Only yesterday when I brought my daughters to kindergarten, then attended, in what seemed to be in quick succession, their elementary, high school and college graduations. Only yesterday when I stood proudly beside my husband as our children got their master’s degrees, then helped them get settled down in faraway cities where I had once dreamed of living. Perhaps that was where the years went, and they were such busy, joyful years that I hadn’t noticed the passing of the seasons. Before I knew it, I hit 70.
Maybe I shouldn’t feel so distressed upon reaching this age. After all, every start of a new decade had been for me a struggle. When I was turning 40, I agonized. For days. It bothered me that I was now crossing to the other side of adulthood, never to be called young again. It got worse when I was turning 50, for then I was going to be half a century old. This advancement in age was brought clearer to me when, at age 55, I went to Paris. On a previous trip there, everyone had called me “Mademoiselle.” Now I was simply “Madame.”
It was around this time that an older friend told me that being 50 was no big deal. That is young, she said. It is when you turn 60 that you start to feel the pangs of old age, when health problems creep up on you and you notice changes in your body that you never expected to happen. Aching joints. Balding scalp. I scoffed at her warning, only to realize, when I turned 60, that everything she said was true.
Worse, my memory also became a casualty of aging. Words that used to come easily to me no longer do. What’s the title of that song again? Who’s the author of that book? Where did we spend summer last year? I have resorted to looking up names, places and titles in Google to refresh my fading memory.
I do not know if this is fair or not. On the one hand, life has allowed me to live this long, and for that I should be grateful. Many have not been so lucky. On the other hand, there are the aches and pains that come with aging, the wrinkles that appear, line by ominous line, and the restlessness that creeps in late at night, refusing to go away until the first streak of dawn warns of impending daylight. Is this the price I have to pay for being given some measure of longevity?
It’s not just the passing of the years that fills me with dread. Now that I’m over 70, I have more to look back on, and less to look forward to. I have more yesterdays than I do tomorrows. More memories than expectations. And whatever those expectations are, they come with uncertainties. For I know the years I have lived are longer than the years I will still live.
I also ask myself if I have made my youthful dreams come true. For the most part, yes. But now, past 70, there are the dreams of my old age, and whether or not I can still fulfill them has become a big question mark. Time, I realize, is no longer on my side.
A friend once told me that he doesn’t mind getting old. That he’s actually enjoying his twilight years, except for those pesky aches and pains that are the bane of old age. Despite everything, I agree with him. I like to think those fiery years of my youth have been replaced with the calm and serenity that come with wisdom, a wisdom that is acquired with the passing of the years.
I also feel that I now have more freedom to do the things I’ve always loved—playing the piano, reading good books, and writing about the things that truly matter. After all, one never really retires from writing. As the saying goes, old writers never die; they just scribble away.
There are also the little rewards that come with the territory. One upside of being forgetful is that I don’t mind watching reruns on TV—because I’ve already forgotten the plots of the stories anyway. Murder mysteries remain a mystery to me because I don’t remember who the murderer is. At the end of the story, when the murderer is revealed, I’m surprised all over again. Watching sitcoms, I laugh at the same old jokes because, although I’ve heard those jokes before, I had already forgotten the punch lines.
Sometimes people close to me even forget that I have become old. Once I showed my husband a dress I had just bought. “Do you like it?” I asked, hoping for a positive reply. “Yes,” he answered, “but it looks like it’s for an old lady.”
“What do you think of me? I am an old lady,” I said, not sure if I should laugh or cry.
Being this old I also feel I have now earned the right to shirk off some responsibilities. Join a crusading group? Ummm… not so fast. Bags and books too heavy for me to carry? Younger friends and relatives are only too happy to oblige. Some of them have even come to me for advice, which I’m always ready to dispense. Perhaps after all these years, I have acquired a modicum of wisdom and a measure of respectability.
But what if I make a faux pas? In my younger years, that would have been a disaster, a trigger for tears and recriminations. But these days, no problem. There’s hardly anyone older who can wag an accusing finger at me. Most of those elementary school teachers are long gone. My parents are long gone. And so is the Reverend Mother. Maybe in the eyes of the younger generation, I have become the Reverend Mother, the one who’s positively ancient.
