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When you get to be my age, one of the inevitable adjustments you have to abide is the notion that even though you were there first, you may not be highly valued in every group. You may be last. Or you may be invisible. Many young people look at your shoes. If they’re black lace-up Rockports, fugeddaboudit. If you pass the shoe test, their eyes move upward to your outfit (outmoded) and finally your hair (gray). You might be considered feminist because you allow your hair to grow gray, cool because you keep up with certain wardrobe styles, or passé, rigid and uninformed because you don’t.
In any case, you still have value. Hold that thought. You might be one-upped by people younger than or different from you because he/she/they believe(s) in the latest “truth.” Observe that this person may have false eyelashes, tattooed eyebrows and colored hair with graying roots.
On a recent day I saw a neighbor. She, as always, was friendly. We crossed the street to chat.
Our witty exchange about her children took a turn. “I don’t know your politics,” she began. I reassured her that she was on safe ground with me and that I shared her enormous worries about whatever is to become of our world if the contender for president beats our vice president. It’s a moral issue for me, a battle between good and evil.
Along strolled another neighbor. Instead of saying, “Oh, excuse me, am I interrupting? May I join you? It’s so nice to see you both,” she planted her feet between us and inserted herself between one of my words and the next, interrupting with, “You know what I’m gonna do if ____ wins? I’m gonna move.”
The two women launched full tilt into their exit strategies, which included employing their various international connections in order to leave our intolerable country. I, as more of a humorous aside, quietly asserted that I would hold down the fort while they rode off in the sunset.
