I Won’t Be Categorized

I think that a major part of my inability to acknowledge where I have got to in my life is that I find the wholesale categorization of people into neat euphemistically labeled packages is utterly senseless. We are all different.

The Elderly, Senior Citizens, Golden Oldies, these labels all conjure up images of Dear Old Things with sticks or Zimmer-frames, slippers by the fire, knitting away with arthritic fingers. That was Retirement in the old days. Most of us aren’t like that now.

If I want to learn to dance I want to join a dance class, not a well-intentioned ‘Senior’s’ class. I want to match my riding skills to competitors of all ages, ski with other people of my ability, old or young. Learn to sail, die from falling from the North face of the Eiger, rather than in a geriatric ward where the nurses will call me ‘Dear’. Now that really would turn me into a Grumpy Old Woman.

From Images© by VM. Shared with the author’s permission.