It’s Complicated

I turned seventy last December. I don’t feel seventy, but since this my first shot at being seventy, I’m not sure how I am supposed to feel. My age changes from day to day. For instance, this morning I was eighty. It must have taken a full two minutes for my body to get moving. My joints and muscles don’t want to work in synchrony. I feel like the Tin Man in Oz begging Dorothy for the oil can. And while watching the last episode of Season Six of Yellowstone, I googled Kevin Costner’s age, certain he was at least in his mid-70’s, only to discover he is sixty-seven. I know. I am officially old.

The great Black athlete Satchel Paige, still pitching at 59 years old, was surrounded by a multitude of sports writers and reporters who asked him over and over to confirm his age. He replied with, “ How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” Well, I’m here to tell you, it depends. (Not talking about the adult briefs, either) Some days, I feel twenty; like when I’m out riding my horse in the field with the blue skies above and the wind waving through the trees. I don’t have a care in the world and my brain can’t tell the difference between when I was in my youth to the present day. That is until I attempt dismount. After I kick my feet out of the stirrups, I lay across my broad-backed friend for a minute before I drop to the ground. A few steps in and I thaw out the stiffness in my “frozen” joints.

Somedays, I feel forty. A few weeks ago my five year old grandson wanted to play baseball for our “just me and Gigi” time. I could manage a decent pitch or two. I could even whack the ball into the grassy area behind him. I could trot around the makeshift bases with enough vigor to impress his young mind. “Gigi, you’re good,” and I puff with pride. And when I am around my other grandkids, I reinvent some of the magic remembered from my own childhood. I swing with them, catch bugs and look for creepy crawlers. I make boats from scooped out pumpkins and set them afloat on the creek up the way. In the same way being around children brings about joyful exuberance, their ability to call an elder out on being a poser is way too real. When I worked in the public schools, I heard multiple references to my age and deteriorating stature.

“Mrs. Wills, you gots granny hands.”

And when a very sweet second grader hugged me and said with confidence; “Mrs. Wills, you’re squishy!”

Or my personal favorite; “You, you, YOU are a big, fat yellow M&M,” the ultimate insult from one of my autistic students.

In my writing groups, I am charged with giving prompts to the participants and letting them pen their own interpretation. This week, I gave writers the Satchel Paige quote. The conclusion; most of us experience age as a construct and at any given moment, we traverse across the unseen. Aging is different for everyone. Some of the excerpts from the writer’s work stand out: We are always in a dialogue with our circumstances. Age is a strength and I would never choose to go backwards. Of course there is the chronology of age, but what about those people who seem to have the Eternal Fountain of Youth (without enhancements)? Then on the other end of the spectrum there are those who have always looked mature for their age; the ones you wanted to hang out with when you hadn’t quite turned 18 or 21. I find myself frequently asking forgiveness from my dear departed mother-in-law Mary Wills for the eye-rolling I displayed when she said, “You just wait. Someday you will know what I am talking about.” Well, that time has arrived. I do know what she meant when she lamented over “getting old.”

When Dan and I moved from our well-appointed maintenance-free condo in Broad Ripple to a three story house with a huge yard and mature trees, we made a deal. I would do the yard work. (I regret daily the rapid affirmative response.) I used to be able to pick up sticks, mow, “eat” the weeds, run the wheelbarrow over the hill, dump it and trot back up the hill in a coordinated dance. Last week, I fell out of my clogs and rolled down the hill. Not a pretty sight for the neighbors who may have been watching. Age is coming to get me and I am ill-prepared for the outcome. I thought I would stay stretchy and limber forever, but the stiffness sort of crept up on me. I suppose a turning point injury may have been a better lesson – I might have treated my body with more respect and care. Now if I go full out in any physical endeavor, I pay the price for days.

So how old would I be if I didn’t know how old I was? I would be every age I’ve ever been and every age I am going to be until I die. When movement is no more than an eye-blink; when tossing a ball is a thud in a field of my dreams. When the spark of joy is a memory I can’t quite ignite. At any given moment, I may fly across the spectrum of time. How others see me is something I try not to consider. I think a recent conversation Dan had with two of our granddaughters, Grace, age 11, and Layne, age 8, brought the point home to me. The girls were in the backyard swinging and in deep conversation. Dan, an interloper to the discussion, quizzed them on the topic. Layne, the younger of the two, replied, “It’s complicated, Grand Dan.” Grace, ever honest in her assessment of a situation replied, “We just want to know who gets Gigi’s horse when she dies.” Buzz Kill. They think I’m old – maybe with even one foot in the grave. It is complicated. Very.

Gwynn Wills is a former speech therapist, certified Amherst Writers and Artists workshop Affiliate and Leader and founder of The Calliope Writers Group. After growing up in Crawfordsville, her and her husband returned several years ago.