YOU'RE ONLY AS OLDAS (OTHERS MAKE) YOU FEEL

You know that optimistic maxim, "You're only as old as you feel"? Well, I like that phrase a lot because it places me solidly in the under-thirty demographic. 

You want proof? Well, I have never met a theme park I didn't like. I know what TikTok is. I frequently think about exercising, and I hunt for jeans and shirts in Forever 21. Finally, I have a sizable and inappropriate crush on certain parts of Chris Hemsworth. (Imagine what you will.) 

 

So why does the world keep trying to burst my bubble?

 

Now, this plot against me—and others of a certain age—has been pretty insidious.  For me, it started in my forties when I noticed that publishers had started using a small, fuzzy font on menus and in magazines. Even more perplexing, the print somehow seemed to become more visible the farther away it got.  Eventually, I found that I could only read things that other people were holding. This annoyed many of them, especially when I asked if they could turn the page.

 

Then, at 50, I inexplicably began receiving AARP magazines. Now, I wasn't yet retired, I hadn't asked for them, and I didn't want them. I also found I got depressed because every famous person on the AARP covers made me say something like, "Ohmigod! When did Bruce Springsteen become a geezer?"  Even worse, saying "AARP" aloud was a disturbing reminder of the noise I was beginning to make after eating certain foods. 

 

The campaign continued. At 55, I started getting mailings from places like Sun City. (Print mailings, of course, because they obviously assumed that no one my age could possibly be tech savvy.) Now THESE ads were sneaky. They featured perfectly coiffed women and dashing white-haired men, all slim, wrinkle-free (their faces, as well as their clothes), impeccably dressed, and not wearing glasses. Each pamphlet was a sort of siren's song, beckoning me to come live in a magical land of designer golf carts, nightly Beatles Sing-Alongs, and ukulele clubs. 

"Come," the sirens whispered, "Be with others of your kind. You'll be happy here…" They almost got me, but I'm now fairly certain that the whole thing is a cruel ploy by younger people to get rid of us and make the rest of the country more aesthetically pleasing. Kind of like that old Twilight Zone episode where people who looked different were sent off to a "special" place, never to be seen again.

 

When I turned 60, the world stopped being subtle. At the stroke of midnight on my birthday, Facebook ads began encouraging me to consider Life Alerts and walk-in showers. I should mention that my husband was receiving similar attack ads, except his tried to reassure him with phrases like "Men, you don't need Viagra." And no matter how many times we hit "Don't show this ad" and screamed "We are not 90 years old, dammit!" more ads kept sprouting up in their place, like hydra heads. I tried switching to Instagram, but the ads have sniffed me out over there, too.

 

At age 65, the mailings morphed into helpful introductions to funeral homes and enticing offers of burial plots. On the bright side, 65 also brought Medicare with its free medications, a development that at first seemed to be a very good thing. But it's just possible that this so-called "Medicare" is simply an attempt to put me and my husband into a permanent drug-induced state where we will no longer question our reality. (Yes, that's a Westworld allusion, inserted to prove that at least I haven't succumbed to binging the Hallmark Channel.) I'm not sure about this hypothesis yet, but I will remain vigilant.

So, this is what I've been up against, and I am just one of many hundreds of thousands. But we are stronger than some of you think, young people, and we are determined. We will continue to fight the good fight until the Sun City police come to forcibly take us away.