The Surprising Upside of Aging: Respect and Kindness You Didn’t See Coming
I have a saying, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over”, it started when I was in my fifties, that’s when I noticed how people, especially younger people, began to treat me differently.
They treated me as if I was old. At 50, 55, 59 years old, I was still fit and able, and hadn’t yet begun to feel the aches and pains of getting older. But people around me acted as if I was already in my 90s.
Now, I am 64 years old. I’m beginning to experience something unexpected from other people, especially younger people.
Firstly, I must say, when you get older it’s increasingly difficult to judge another person’s age. I don’t know if this is bound-in with the feeling that it doesn’t really matter anymore, or whether it’s a real mental phenomenon.
I can look at a person and see that they are very young, but adult. And I can look at a person and know they probably describe themselves as middle-aged — for me, they are still young and full of the stuff of life.
Middle age comes, and then it flits by like an out-of-control shopping trolley rolling down a slope. Spinning, bouncing off walls, scraping past cars and shoppers. It stops amongst the dumpsters and waits for the rain to make it rusty. Such is life.
So, I’m now 64. People treat me as an older person, but boy, they are so polite. I didn’t expect this royal treatment.
People should treat each other, regardless of age, with the same respect that I’m beginning to experience these days.
I get on a bus and somebody younger will catch my eye and offer me their seat. Is it the completely grey hair? Or maybe I wobble, or am slow, or do I have a hand jitter that I haven’t noticed?
I still have the image of a younger, middle-aged man in my mind. And yes, these days I do get a bit of a shock when I look in the mirror and see an older man — sometimes, it’s as if I catch a glimpse of the ghost of my father passing through a room.
It’s so refreshing and against my expectations to encounter politeness amongst younger people today.
They all seem so wrapped up in their own lives and problems, heads down, thumbs bouncing off smart phone screens. Unaware of what’s going on in the bus around them. But yet, a quick glimpse up, and they see me, standing, holding tight to a yellow pole close to the doors, and they smile and motion to their own seat. They mouth the words, ‘would you like to sit here’.
If I have a backache day, then I take the seat with thanks. If I’m feeling 20 again, I’ll smile and refuse their offer.
Standing on a Berlin bus is a precarious situation. Only a safety pole to grab onto, the driver is swinging the bus around corners, quickly overtaking slower vehicles. And passengers, young and old, are bouncing around like monkeys on a spaceship.
It’s an interesting experience to get older. I’m sure there is lots to come that is good and bad. But to be treated kindly by others is what makes the world better.
If I get on a bus and I see there are ten older people onboard, then the competition has begun. Who gets offered the first seat?
The man opposite me is leaning heavily on a walking-stick, and the older woman with a tired face and both hands gripping the railings is a winner for a good deed.
I just look tired and grey, the lines in my face develop more over time. I think a map of Europe is forming from the eyebrows down to the chin.
Politeness costs nothing, but sometimes only your own seat on the bus or underground, but to show a little old-school, mensch to mensch, politeness really is what makes the world a better and kinder place for young and old.
