Too Young to be 70

The voice mail message advises me that one in every three Americans over 65 falls every year in the U.S. and that fall may be the last. It’s a message intended to sell me an alarm to hang around my neck, in the event of a fall. I wipe the sweat off of my face and laugh. I play roller derby and I really know how to fall and avoid getting hurt.

I am too young to be 70.

I was never one to get upset about a number. Until this one. When I was approaching forty, Karen Kavet’s book, “I’d Rather Be 40 Than Pregnant” was popular. “Wrong,” I thought at the time as I was awaiting the arrival of my firstborn, just 3 weeks shy of turning forty. The next few decades flew by, with work, raising kids, a traveling husband and a cross-country move, I hardly had a moment to reflect on the passing of time. I had become used to a younger peer group because, like typical suburban parents, we made many friends through our kids, friendships formed at school, on the soccer field, the speech therapist’s office; my children’s friends parents soon became the center of our social circle.

My fifties flew by and before I knew it I had turned sixty. I sympathized with my then seventy five- year-old friend who complained about being invisible, but I still really didn’t get it. I thought I understood when she said that someone telling her (a beautiful woman) that they thought she must have been really pretty when she was younger was not, in fact, a compliment. And that she hated being treated like an old woman who couldn’t stand on the bus (as people likely thought they were doing a good deed by offering her a seat) or how she was perfectly capable of reaching items on the supermarket shelf.

At the time, I thought she was being overly sensitive and not appreciative of kind offers of assistance. As I got older, I started to get it. It’s not fun being reminded at every turn that the world sees you as “old,” regardless of how you feel. When I sat down on a step to rest during a particularly grueling skate the other day, a young couple stopped by on their stroll to ask me if I was OK. I snapped at them, “I’m fine, are you OK?”

Changing times have brought both relief and dismay. We were marching for women’s rights in the 1970s and women today still only earn a portion of what men do. We thought, after the summer of love that pot would be legal and that our children wouldn’t be arrested and sent to jail for smoking a joint. We believed that by the year 2000 our bodies would no longer be subject to legislative interference.

But some changes were for the better. Seeing older women on TV and the movies, and watching large consumer product companies using older models helps us realize that Geritol and incontinence medicines are not the only thing being marketed to older people. (And those beep if you fall gadgets). Although I do think advertisers and clothing manufacturers (yes, I live in so- called athleisure wear, but no, I don’t want my body parts exposed) have a way to go before they get it right.

I am too young to be 70.

The woman I see in the mirror is not the real me. What I see there is a personal betrayal. I use moisturizer, wear sunscreen and drink lots of water, nonetheless the wrinkles get wrinklier and my perfectly toned arms have started their own jiggle. And I don’t remember anyone ever telling me about how the knees start their own gravitational pull. Better not to look. I could write the book on why Facetime and Skype are not friends of the older woman.

Then there are the kids. The same ones who for years asked for assistance at every turn now treat me as if I was made of fragile Dresden china. They offer me dull advice about what I should and should not be eating. And remind me to take my vitamins. No wonder I want to kick the “little” (24 year old) one in knee with my roller skate when he jokes that derby’s not a sport, “just an activity!”

I am too young to be 70.

But wait. I am healthy and strong and fierce. I am one of the lucky ones. Disease, disability, death are often as random as those acts of kindness. My turn may come later than I think or sooner than I desire. I am here now. I am 70. I will learn to embrace it.