My husband is younger than I, a fact he loves to point out at any opportunity (smart fellow, huh?). And, that aside, the older I get, the younger everyone else gets. It's a numbers game - if the current life expectancy is around 80, then after you reach 40, forever after there are more people younger than you than older. And it only gets worse.
The current President of the United States is younger than I am . I don't know about you, but for most of my life the President was an old dude. *sigh* So I express excitement any time I find out someone - particularly public figures - is older than I. And I generally play this little game with my husband, just to be sure he knows I'm not the oldest living person on the planet, despite his less-than-gentle ribbing. Driving to work this week, we both heard Michael Stipe's birthday announced on the radio - born a year before me. Yippee!, we both exclaim (at least my husband knows enough to share in my glee). I mean, the lead singer of REM is more senior than I and he's still cool, right? I want to be the person for whom age is "just a number." But I find myself using age as a barometer more and more. For example, if someone makes a bonehead move, the first question I tend to ask is how old said person is. That will determine, for me at least, if we can chalk it off to youthful naivete or if that person is old enough to know better and, therefore, just clueless. (And believe me, I am said person more often than I'd like to admit.) Does that make me an ageist? For now, I will continue to play my "who's older than I" game, though with diminishing returns, I'm afraid. Oh well, as they say, it's better than the alternative. Take that Michael Stipe.
2 Comments
Lisa
1/5/2017 10:22:37 am
I'm younger than you!
Reply
Dina Meek
1/5/2017 10:30:23 am
Shut your piehole youngster!
Reply
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