I Am as Old as I Feel

This post is a bit of a rant inspired by Gawain at Heaven Tree. Bits of his post I agree with, other bits I don't, but one sentence jumped out of the post demanding a retort and ruining it for the rest of the sentences:

And while it is tiresome to have to hear the same old "I am as old as I feel" song-and-dance, it can be quite entertaining to watch definitely over-the-hill people engage in conduct completely unsuitable to their age (and physique), and make fools of themselves in the process (e.g. 50 year old "sex-bombs" baring what should, given wear and tear, best stay hidden).

I'm getting damn close to 50, and I still wear a bikini on the beach. And I don't look any different from anyone else my age. My child-stretched tummy wrinkles sometimes fold over the top of my bottoms, and my skin flaps that were once full breasts need to be tucked back in from time to time (when I'm wearing a top at all that is). With the sun warming my skin and the wind caressing my body, I'm nothing if not sexy! Foolish? If I kept myself covered out of fear of looking foolish, then I'd be behaving like a teenager obsessed with my appearance and the opinions of others. Instead I can relish the freedom self-acceptance brings with it.

I have a friend a good 15 years younger than I am who never takes her bra off during sex. She has large breasts and is embarrassed and uncomfortable with them flopping around all over the place. That never happens in TV sex, so it's obviously not very sexy. The sex we're exposed to features the standard upright, perky, large, but only jiggly, never floppy, never drooping or flying upwards as she moves types of breasts. Breasts must be in control for the camera! But let's challenge that stereotype. If gravity-defying, controlled boobs are necessary for some people's arousal because the TV says so, and the TV's not about to change its tune, then it means we need more sexy older people and larger people and imperfect people showing off their goods at the beach. And we need to stop laughing at them.

Age is an artificial construct. It's created within social groups, and is largely variable between social groups across place and/or time. The obvious example of this is that some social groups hope for marriage and children in their teens, and others ten years later. I am my age, but I feel other ages. I feel old when I feel the barriers of a body no longer working as effectively or energetically, but that doesn't have to determine my mindset, my attitudes, or my choice of outfits. I'm not trying to act young by wearing a bikini, I'm just wearing what I've always worn. Why change now? I blow big raspberries at the socially dictated notions of the acceptable behaviours of each decade.

I resign myself to a body slowing down and hanging down, but I don't resign myself to endless potluck dinners, or quiet conversations over tea with people who never say anything impolite (or interesting), or hours spent listening to Gordon Lightfoot droning on and on, or mumus for that matter. This is what, according to colleagues (and Gawain by implication), I'm supposed to be enjoying at my age. They keep inviting me and can't imagine why I don't oblige them.

It's not a matter of resisting aging, but accepting only a few physical limitations and a slower pace from time to time. There'll be no plastic surgery or caked on make-up for this chick, but I think I'll always feel sexy. Speed is not a pivotal criterion for sex or sensuality. I can have some damn fine sex really slowly.

***

I think what it means to say we feel young is different than grasping at the last glimmers of adolescence. Old and young are words that are entirely relative. Consider scenes from the Beatles' film (or a film that used the Beatles), Yellow Submarine, in which a very old man is referred to as "Young Fred" by an even older man. Adult and adolescent, however, are terms that can be defined specifically.

Very generally, when I say, "I feel young," it typically means I'm feeling full of energy. "I feel old" means I'm feeling tired or otherwise incapacitated. I especially felt old recently when, for the first time ever, I hurt my back lifting heavy boards improperly. (Bend at the knees, dammit!) Like my 86-year-old dad, I couldn't even lift up my daughter. But I'm recovering. I know my limits and know to take greater care with my body. In my 20s I biked 30 km/h consistently, and now I'm down to 20 km/h, but I can still do 60 K in an afternoon. I have limits, but I'm not dead yet.

But I think it's the definitions of adult and adolescent that really need some exploration here. Often when we say someone's acting like a teenager, or not acting their age, the person is being playful or harmlessly inappropriate. I tell my children and my students over and over that getting older doesn't mean it's not okay to play. This seems an especially novel idea to girls in grade 11 who possibly aspire to maturity more than any other demographic (likely to further distance themselves from grade 11 guys having belching contests in the hallways). But their definition of maturity seems to include being judgmentally puritanical and just plain boring. I sometimes get them to do goofy role-plays in class primarily to get them a little closer to the ground with the rest of us.

When we stop playing, when we stop being silly from time to time, that's when we really start to get old in the worst way. We stagnate and petrify. The best guy to read on this topic is Carl Jung who spent many of his adult years playing with rocks like he did as a child. One of the towers he built can still be seen today. His view is that daily play is vital to physical, social and mental health. Play means doing something unnecessary and likely impractical. Playing a game of soccer in which tempers flare and performance affects salaries isn't really play at all, but playing a game in the local schoolyard without keeping score too meticulously, is. It's all attitude.

To be a mature adult has little to do with whether or not someone laughs at toilet humour or builds sand castles on the weekends. To me, for someone to be considered an adult has to do with their actions: taking responsibility for their own words and deeds, being basically self-sufficient, and having an authentic care and concern for others. In contrast, the adolescent attitude is still hoping to get away with stuff through backpedaling, or manipulative or dishonest means, leans unnecessarily on others for necessities and luxuries, and is generally self-centered. 50-year-old women baring a bit of skin shouldn't be so quickly relegated to the latter category. But consider where you'd put Bush or most of the other great leaders of our times.

The benefit of aging, as I tell my students who dread the very idea, is no longer caring about public opinion so much. As a teen, typically, people are self-conscious, desperate for approval from the groups higher up on the social hierarchy. As we age, we can lose the veneer and just be. But, sadly, it's not always the case. I met up with an old friend one day and we decided to get a drink together. He was always up to something different, never one to follow the crowd. But at the bar, he looked around awkwardly and said, "I'm too old to be in this club." WTF?? It was a Lester Burnham moment. He was the middle-aged man in American Beauty who realizes he's a loser - he had lost some piece of himself and spent the film getting it back. He had forgotten how to play.

***

Although I know I am the age I am chronologically, how I feel varies. Each age has a certain feel to it, certain markers, and when I encounter those, I'm transported to that age again. Music does it to me in a big way. A song on the radio can instantly take me to a different time. I can feel tired and old, and a Police tune suddenly gives me the energy of my 16-year-old self trying to convince my friend to sneak her mom's car for the night so we can get across town.

The Beatles take me to my pre-school years, so it's not surprising that I sing my kids to sleep with Beatle songs (and Joni Mitchell's "Rainy Night" because it's the only song I can sing well - in the world).

The Guess Who is Sunday mornings as a child. Opera playing at full volume is outrageously early Sunday mornings for as long as I lived with my parents.

I'm 16 when I hear the Who, at the first of their farewell concerts. (I'm still mad about that!) Neil Young songs turn me 19 again. Nirvana comes on and I'm cramming for exams in university (I went late). Nine Inch Nails, and I've just met my guy at 35. I more fully understood my obsession with NIN when I heard the band play with Adam Ant - It's 80s music!!

Any blues music sends me back to my first boyfriend from 17 to 27 who took me to see Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, and B.B. King among others. And I still have the towel B.B. used to wipe off his sweat. Jazz is the rebound boyfriend of my late 20s who got me into Wynton Marsalis. When I think of blues and jazz, I would think I'd feel older, but they bounce me back to the precise time and place they got stuck in my bones.

When I'm at a concert or listening to a new CD or dancing, I'm ageless, selfless. When I'm watching a film or getting lost in a book, my age varies with the characters. I can spend time relating to one character, then completely shift to another of a dramatically different age (and gender). Who I relate to is how old I am feeling at the time.

In conversations with my guy, we're often the same age, but other times we waver back and forth. Sometimes he's younger and playful, and I'm the older one reeling him in. Other times he's the old one, wise and reasonable trying to calm my childish tantrums.

Playful, goofy sex makes me 20. Warm, passionate sex is more 40-ish. A back rub that soothes my aching body leaves me a relaxed and well-cared-for 80-year-old.

Stealing big rocks from a construction site at night (loaded in my baby carriage no less), I'm 12. Carefully positioning them in my garden in the morning with a cup of tea nearby, I'm at least 60.

When my knees and ankles crack going downstairs in the morning, I'm about 70. When I'm not done dancing at two a.m., I'm 17.

Generally, in the mornings I'm the worst of the aged, cantankerous, with few words of wisdom. In the afternoons, I'm a middle-aged worker getting stuff done. In the early evening, I'm a young mother caring for my kids. But once night falls, I'm a teenager ready to play.

And every single time I ride my bike, I'm 10 years old, in a bathing suit with bare feet, off to get a 5-cent freezie from the store. And I don't give a flying fuck at a donut what people think of my sagging body. I'm ten!