What Does It Really Mean to Grow Old

In my late fifties, and then my sixties, I heard, "I can't believe you're that old. You don't look that old." At first that felt like praise. Then I became a bit uneasy. It reminded me of early pre-feminist days when I was complimented by some men for being "smarter", and "more independent" than those "other" women.

Slowly other experiences began to accumulate, reminding me of a real change in my life status.

First, I moved. And while I found easy acceptance among older people in the community, when younger people talked to me they invariably would say something like, "You remind me of my grandmother." Grandmother?! I felt like I had been given a label and my position lowered somehow.

Recently, I have, in fact, become a grandmother. I found most young friends expected me — automatically — to "be" a certain way. Many of those expectations were in accord with what I felt. Some were not. I did not instantly fall in love with my grandson. I was much more drawn to my daughter and what she was experiencing. I must admit that I am now a devoted grandmother, but being put in a particular category about that bothered me, as though all of my reactions could be known in advance and belonged to the general group "grandmother" rather than to me.

I lost some money recently through bad judgment and suddenly had the realization that I would never be able to replace it. I do not have enough time left to be able to earn that money again.

I looked in the mirror and saw lots of wrinkles. I had a hard time fitting that outward me with the me inside. I felt like the same person, but outside I looked different. I checked into a face lift, with much unease. What a piece of marketing took place in that doctor's office! He told me he would make me less strange to myself. I would look more like I felt! I became frightened by the whole process. Who was I then? This face? What I felt like inside? How come the two images were not connected? My own ageism told me that how I looked outside was ugly. But I felt the same inside, not ugly at all.

Finally, death entered my life as a direct reality. My oldest friend died of cancer three years ago. My father died two years ago after what turned out to be needless surgery. Another close friend died last month after a year of struggling with cancer. My mother is dying slowly and painfully after suffering a massive stroke. The realization hit me that I can expect this kind of personal contact with death to occur with greater and greater frequency.

Not just my age, but life itself was telling me that I was becoming an older/old woman!

Think of all the adjectives that are most disrespectful in our society. They are all part of the ageist description of old women: useless, powerless, complaining, sick, weak, conservative, rigid, helpless, unproductive, wrinkled, ugly, unattractive, and on and on.

How did this happen, this picture of old women? To understand this phenomenon we must look at our society's insistence that women are only valuable when they are attractive and useful to men. Women spend their lives accepting the idea that to be beautiful one must be young, and only beauty saves one from being discarded. Women's survival, both physical and psychological, has been linked to their ability to please men. It is small wonder that the prospect of growing old is frightening to women. By denying our ageing, we hope to escape the penalties placed upon growing old.

Old people are sent off to their own prisons. Frequently they will say they like it better. But who would not when, to be with younger people is so often to be invisible, to be treated as irrelevant, and sometimes even as disgusting.

We have systematically looked down on old women, kept them out of productive life, judged them primarily in terms of failing capacities and functions, and then found them pitiful. We have put old women in nursing "homes" with absolutely no intellectual stimulation, isolated from human warmth and contact, and then condemned them for losing their mental abilities. We have disrespected and disregarded old women, and then dismissed them as uninteresting. We have made old women invisible so that we do not have to confront our society's myths about what makes life valuable or dying painful.

Having done that, we then attribute to the process of ageing per se all the evils we see and fear about growing old. It is not ageing that is awful, nor whatever physical problems may accompany ageing. What is awful is how society treats old women and their problems. To the degree that we accept and allow such treatment we buy the ageist assumptions that permit this treatment.

What then does it really mean to grow old? For me, first of all, to be old is to be myself. No matter how society may classify me as invisible and powerless, I exist. I am a person, a sexual being, a person who struggles, for whom there are important issues to explore, new things to learn, challenges to meet, beginnings to make, risks to take, endings to think about. Even though some of my options are reduced, there are new paths ahead.

Words: 902

    年迈到底意味着什么
    先是在我五十八九岁时，后来在六十多岁时，人家对我说"真不相信你有那个年纪了。 你看上去没有那么老。" 起初我会感到那是赞扬，后来觉得有点不安。 它使我想起女权运动兴起之前的情况。那时男士们恭维我时说我比"其他的"女人"更精明"和"更独立"。
    渐渐地愈来愈多的其他经历都在提示我：我的生命状态已真的出现变化了。
    首先，我搬家了。在新的环境里我很容易融入到年长者中去，而当年青人与我说话时，他们总会说"你使我想起我外婆"之类的话， 外婆？！我觉得自己被贴上了标签，地位也有点下降了。
    我最近的确当外婆了。 我发现大多数年青朋友都理所当然地认为我"会"这样或那样。 这样的期望很多都与我的感受一致，但有些可不同。 我并没有一下就喜欢上了我的外孙。 我倒是更牵挂我的女儿，关心她当时的感受。 我得说我现在已是一个慈爱的外祖母， 但是就此而被归于某一特定的类别却使我不快，好像我所有的反应人们都能预见，也都为一般的"祖母"类的人所有而不是属于我自己似的。
    最近我由于判断失误而损失了一些钱，我突然意识到我可能再也无法重获那笔钱了。 我已没有足够的时间去再挣那么一笔钱了。
    我看到镜中的我有了很多皱纹，感到很难使那外在的我与内在的我相吻合。 我觉得自己还是原来的我，可是外观上我却有了变化。 我去挂了号整容，但是感到十分忧虑不安。 那个诊所里就像在开展营销活动！ 医生跟我说他能使我不对自己感到陌生，我会看上去就像我感受到的那样！ 整个这一过程使我感到害怕。做完后我是谁？这张脸？ 我内心会怎样感觉？ 内外两个形象怎么就联系不起来？ 我自己对年老的看法告诉我，自己的外表是难看的。 但是我感受到我的内心一点也没有变，那可一点也不难看。
    最后，死亡这个直白的现实进入了我的生活。 我最年长的一位朋友三年前死于癌症。 我父亲在经历了一场后来证明是毫无必要的手术后于两年前去世。 另一个好朋友在与癌症搏斗了一年之后也于上个月去世。 我的母亲得了严重中风，现正缓慢而痛苦地朝着死亡走去。 我顿时意识到我与死亡的接触会越来越频繁。
    不仅是年龄，就是生活本身也在告诉我：我正在变成一个年长的，或是年老的妇人。
    想想社会上所用的那些非常不尊重人的形容词， 它们都是年龄歧视主义用来说老年妇女的： 无用，无能，爱抱怨，多病，体弱，保守，僵化，无助，成不了事，满脸皱纹，丑陋不堪，魅力无存，等等，等等。
    这种对老年妇女的看法是怎么产生的？ 为了弄清这个现象，我们必须看到这个社会一直坚持认为女性只有能吸引男人，对男人有用时才有她们自身的价值。 女人毕其一生接受了这个观点，那就是要想漂亮就得年青，只有漂亮才不致被弃。 女人的生存，不论是生理的还是心理的，都与其取悦于男人的能力有关。 难怪进入老年的前景对于女人来说是那么可怕。 我们想用否认衰老来逃避年老所要受的苦难。
    老人被送去待在他们自己的牢笼里。 他们常说他们更喜欢那样。 可谁会不喜欢呢，尤其是当他们与比自己年轻的人相处往往使得自己显得无足轻重，被看作不相干，有时甚至会被讨厌的时候。
    我们一贯从各方面瞧不起老年妇女，不让她们参加生产活动，主要从其日渐衰落的能力和作用上去评价她们，还要说她们很可怜。 我们把老年妇女送进养老之"家"，那儿没有丝毫促进思考动脑的活动，远离人间的温暖和交往，然后指责她们丧失了思维能力。 我们不尊重老年妇女，漠视她们，然后说她们乏味而排斥她们。 我们使老年妇女退出社会，销声匿迹，这样我们就不用面对这个社会里关于何以使生命如此宝贵，死亡如此痛苦的问题了。
    我们这样地对待她们，然后将对于衰老的种种不幸和恐惧统统归因于衰老过程本身。 可怕的并不是衰老，也不是伴随着衰老而来的各种身体上的疾患。 可怕的是社会对待老年妇女和她们遇到的各种问题的方式。 我们接受并容忍这样的对待，就是接纳了默许这种做法的年龄歧视。
    那么年老到底意味着什么呢？ 对我来说，首先，年纪大了，我仍然是我。 不管社会怎样认为我已无足轻重，无能无力，我仍然存在。 我是一个人，一个有性别的生命，一个努力奋斗的人，她要探索重大问题，要学习新的东西，要迎接新的挑战，要有新的开端，要担当风险，要考虑结局。 即使我的选择已不多了，但前方总还有新路要走。