Age is relative.

I can remember at various ages in my life relating to others as being so much older. When Cheyenne was nine she talked about a twelve year old she knows as if she were a seasoned woman of the world. On the other end, she referred to the kindergarten and first grade students last year (when she herself was in fourth grade) as the “cute little people”. At all ages – age is relative.

We go through the first twenty or so years of our lives itching to get to the next year so that we can say we are that much older. From there forward we begin the process of wanting to turn back time. And what is somewhat sad is that folks rarely realize while they are the age they are the absolute relativity of age.

My most vivid memory relating to age occurred when I was just shy of 18 and I was hanging out with a group of friends and my friend’s sister who was 29. To this day I remember my thought at the time (which is odd seeing as there are so many important things I cannot seem to retain – yet this sticks…) – I thought, “29, wow that is old”. Next June my oldest daughter will be 29 and she does not seem old to me and in truth the new forty does not seem that old to me most days, but as I said age is relative.

When my dad first moved to North Dakota after my mother passed he wanted to join a local senior citizen’s club in the community to meet folks. At the time he was all of seventy. After going to one of their lunch meetings he proclaimed that the seniors in the local senior citizen’s club were “old”. Of course they were. Hearty North Dakotans often barrel right into their nineties as fully participating members of the community.

Now if you had asked me at the time if my dad would have fit in I would have said, “Yes, he is a senior citizen – they are senior citizens – what’s to discuss?” I share this story to illustrate the fact that age – even old age is relative. I assumed that seventy and beyond just all melted together in a general category of old, but I was viewing the group through my eyes, not theirs.

My dad’s objection was that many of the seniors had almost twenty years on him. Twenty years is a long time – all things being relative. It is the equivalent of saying that being between twenty and forty are the same or that being between forty and sixty are the same and clearly they are not. But to a twenty year old you might be able to sell that between forty and sixty are the same as the assessment is based on the age of the assessor.

And in this discussion of age relativity it must be noted that actual age is just an external measure of age – the age we view ourselves as internally can really muck up the discussion. The point is at seventy, my dad could still differentiate other folks as “old” and that, my friends, is quite heartening in the new forty.

I remember in my mid-forties when I was single and dating telling folks that I was done dating younger men and had set my mind on looking for a “sugar daddy”. My brother cured me of that when he pointed out that if a woman of my age wanted a “sugar daddy” the search crew would have to hit the senior homes. Apparently a “sugar daddy” in one’s mid-forties puts one in the senior citizen dating pool. That really de-romanticized the whole idea for me as in my mid-forties the age 65+ seemed decidedly old.

It is good to know that I will wax longingly in the future for my youthful days in the new forty. I already smile knowingly when my young students and colleagues learn that I am the new forty and mentally place me in the “old” column.

Ah yes, age is relative and today I realize that I am still quite young…at least to my seventy and eighty year old friends.

Day twenty-nine of the new forty – obla di obla da

CC