Getting Old ... Hopefully For The Better

There's a comic strip called For Better or Worse where two women are shopping. They go up to the cashier to check out and the cashier asks the first woman if she would like the senior citizen discount. In response, the woman unleashes a lecture about assuming someone is old and to be more respectful. The next woman goes up to the register and is asked the same question. She responds that yes, she would like the discount. As the two friends leave, the first woman proudly states she saved her dignity. The second woman proudly announces she saved money. I read the comic strip as a teenager and I have been wondering ever since when I get old, which one will I be? 

 I am about to turn 45 so old age is really gunning for me now. Fifty is just around the corner; I am preparing myself for the emails and mailings from things like AARP. I guess that is the one certainty in life; nothing is predictable and everything can change except for junk mail. Junk mail is forever. 

Since growing old is another one of those inevitable things I just have one request to myself: that I be a cool old person. I don't want to be spiteful or pessimistic or whine about how everything was better way back when. 

A while ago, there was a letter to the editor in the paper. A woman expressed how she felt scorned when she wrote to the executive director of the senior center, asking if it was really necessary to hang a LGBTQ rainbow flag outside the center and was told bluntly that yes, yes it was necessary. In the comments, another woman wrote saying, "From one old lady to another, you got what you deserved ... life is short, why spend it exercising hate and resentment?" My all-time favorite comment. I think I'll follow that old lady's footsteps.  She's cool.