Spoiler alert – it’s our health. How do we break the habit?
I’m at an art workshop in New York City, splashing crimson paint around on a huge canvas and having a grand old time. The room is filled mostly with twenty-and-thirty-something folks, bright-eyed, chatty, bursting with vitality and youth. They’re being very kind, trying to include me in their conversations.
Sometimes I feel like they’re speaking in another language (it’s “cuffing season and I’m still alone,” said one young woman with pink hair) and even though I have Google translate on my phone, I don’t have a clue as to what she’s saying.
Although at 72, I don’t necessarily consider myself old, I imagine that I would be considered so in the eyes of the people in the room. There’s one other “older person” there, a man, kind of cute, actually, who looks like he’s probably in his late fifties. The others probably think HE’S old, too.
It’s fascinating to consider how often our words, and the things we talk about, are reflective of the ages and stage of life. When I listen to those young `uns talk, it makes me think about things, both positive and negative, that I’ll never say again, because of my age.
It’s fascinating to consider how often our words, and the things we talk about, are reflective of the ages and stage of life.
“My grandmother is meeting me at the museum so we can see the Picasso exhibit.”
“The baby is teething and she cried for three hours straight last night!”
“I just found my first gray hair!”
“Honey, do you know where my birth control pills are?”
One of the perks of aging is there are some great and happy things that we CAN say, because we’re … um, older? These include:
“Let’s go to lunch and a movie on Wednesday afternoon.”
“I actually slept until 10 a.m. on Monday morning!”
“They took $50 off my vet bill because they offer a senior discount.”
‘Senior Speak’
We’re at my friend Alicia’s house. Her lovely daughter, Mariel, 33, a Hollywood writer, is visiting from LA. We are eating nachos and washing them down with Bob’s mango margaritas. Mariel, usually chatty, is sitting there gazing into space and looking bored and I quickly realize why.
So much of our conversation (senior speak, I call it) has been about health. Two of us have Type 2 diabetes, another has an arthritic knee and a sore shoulder gotten from lifting weights at the gym with an over-zealous trainer. My husband, a fit, previously healthy and still vibrant 81-year-old, was recently diagnosed with the disease that, back in the 1960s, we called “the big C.”
Mariel and her friends don’t talk much about health. Well, they do a bit, since people even in their twenties and thirties have stress related ailments like headaches and irritable bowel syndrome, and injuries from fun activities like bungee jumping.
“We don’t talk much about illness but we do talk about wellness – things we’re doing like acupuncture, massage, juice cleansing, detoxing and meditation.”
When I get sick (pardon the pun) of talking about health and illness, I turn to Mari, apologize if we’re being tedious, and say, “I bet you and your friends don’t talk about this kind of stuff.” She laughs. “No, we talk about fun things like travel and vacation plans, what weddings we’re going to be in, movies we want to see and the last great book we’ve read. And, of course we talk about the news and the current state of the world.”
Thinking a minute, she adds, “We don’t talk much about illness but we do talk about wellness – things we’re doing like acupuncture, massage, juice cleansing, detoxing and meditation.” Wellness, according to The National Institutes of Health is “a holistic integration of physical and spiritual well-being, fueling the body, engaging the mind and nurturing the spirit.” All good.
I ask her what’s new in her life, and she tells me about hiking in the San Gabriel mountains, where she and her husband had their first date, about her newfound love of Pilates, and about her frustration with the job hunt. Since the entertainment strike, she and many of her friends in the industry have been having a tough time career-wise. I cluck sympathetically.
Aging Talk Creeps In
In the car going home, I tell my husband that I’m making a resolution. I am going to seriously limit my discussions about health and illness and aging. One minute later, as he swerves to avoid a rogue driver barreling down the highway, I shriek, “Watch that guy! He’s going to get us killed!” Uh-oh, death crept back in there immediately after my resolute vow to avoid talking about life-threatening stuff.
Five minutes later, looking out the window, I see a beautiful magenta Ford Mustang and say, “Wow, that’s a great color. When we get a new car I want something like that.” And my husband says, matter-of-factly, “We might never get another car. Our ten-year-old Toyota is doing fine, and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be driving anyway.”
“We might never get another car. Our ten-year-old Toyota is doing fine, and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be driving anyway.”
And aging talk has returned yet again. Although he’s still a great driver (except when it comes to parallel parking and no one in New York City is very good at that) he’s implying that at some point he’ll be too old to drive. And I, a nervous wreck (or choleria, as my Yiddish-spouting grandmother would say) who didn’t learn to drive until my 50th birthday, would certainly never drive a new, un-banged-up car. Our old Toyota is just fine.
It’s baseball season, and my husband, a dyed (not died!) in the wool Yankees fan, is happy as the proverbial clam. I’ll be doing needlepoint a lot since he’ll be ensconced in front of the TV from now until the World Series. He starts telling me about players who had injuries needing surgery (Tommy John, repair of an ACL) and yup, we’re back to talking about ailments.
Anxiety. Health issues. Illness, hospitals, recovery. Yup, it’s all too often an element of the aging process, and actually, it’s sometimes part of life no matter what your age.
If Mariel was with us, she’d be talking about which of the LA Dodgers has the cutest butt. Then she’d be telling me about her best friend’s new husband, an ardent baseball fan himself, who’s a real hottie. (I’m not sure if that word is still popular with the under 40-cohort, but when I look it up, I see it’s still in use.) Then maybe she’d be telling me about her friend who just had a baby and ended up with a C-section. (Yes, that’s talking about surgery too, but the kind where you end up with a sweet-smelling bundle of joy instead of yellow goop trickling out of orifices you never knew you had.)
Anxiety. Health issues. Illness, hospitals, recovery. Yup, it’s all too often an element of the aging process, and actually, it’s sometimes part of life no matter what your age.
But here’s what I’ll be discussing from now on. The delicious smell and sizzle of Ballpark hot dogs at (yup) the ball park. My niece’s growing success as a teaching artist and how she’s now exhibiting and selling her work. And the latest Broadway show that we saw (without a word about the man next to me who coughed throughout the whole performance).
Wow, changing conversational themes is harder than it looks. Thinking about it has exhausted me. I’m going to eat some apple pie now without worrying about cholesterol, gaining weight or pre-diabetes. The only thing I’m going to obsess about is what flavor ice cream I should put on the pie. THAT is something worth worrying about, and maybe even discussing. Butter pecan or Chunky Monkey, anyone?
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