We need a new term to define the coming of age Baby Boomers. “Senior” are our parents and grandparents, but not me or anyone I know. We’re full of life. Maybe we should be called “Lifers” We’re exuberant and full of fun. Maybe “Funsters” should be our new term.
Almost anything would be better than “Seniors”. Every time I hear the term or see a sign denoting a special discount for “seniors” I have an inner battle with myself: “Do I want the two dollars off and face the indignities of admitting to myself and to the world that I’ve turned that proverbial corner from the living to what comes next?”
I remember when I couldn’t wait to be a teenager. In fact, I lied that I was when I wasn’t. Then I was an “adult”. Another term I embraced. It suggested that I no longer could be accused of the “the folly of my youth”. It implied that I was finally “grown-up”, mature and wise. I enjoyed these years, although admittedly they came and went much too fast. I didn’t have enough time to do all the grown-up things I wanted to do.
Now I’m in that segway time in my life. AARP was the first to notice, and as if the world needed to know they herald in the birth of my seniority and the demise of my adulthood with the insensitivity of sending me a welcome letter accompanied by the magazine recognized worldwide as the senior magazine.
I couldn’t fake it and pretend it was meant for me. No, emblazoned on the cover was my name and my address. How utterly humiliating. “I’m no senior!” I screamed inwardly. I’m not on the cusp of the other side of life. Friends consoled me with expressions like, “Don’t you know 50 is the new 20?” It only got worse soon thereafter.
Because, unlike the years of our youth when they moved at a turtle’s pace, the senior years fly by as if on a jet plane to no where. Nowadays there’s never enough time and time has a new dreadful meaning . We fight against time. We pretend time doesn’t matter. Time has become the enemy, and there’s not enough of it to turn things around.
And as if that weren’t enough, there are other changes. Some subtle, but mostly they’re in your face, grotesque changes just to give you a glimpse of what’s in store. Remember the days when you could stay up all night, dance ‘til the moon slid behind the horizon and splash a little water on your face and put in a full day at work? Well, if you’re still in those years, revel in it because not in the too distant future you will lament that “those were the days - and where are they now?”
