You're Too Old to Care About the Societal Side Eye When You Want to Be a Badass

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Ryan Holloway on Unsplash

A reader’s comment inspired this, and we all might take a lesson

Johnny B. Truant

dropped me a line the other day which was as perfect a gauntlet as I’ve ever received to write an article.

In response to a few lines I’d posted about getting after it after sixty, he wrote

As someone who already gets side-eyes at 47 for doing all sorts of new things that are “for young people,” I appreciate the hell out of this.

Let’s explore this, shall we?

At the dewy, youthful age of 47, I had yet to write my first book. Had yet to climb a number of very large mountains. Had yet to engage in all kinds of extreme sports which would take me all over the world and back and then some, all after the age of sixty.

No clue any of this was on the horizon, either.

Sixty. God that sounds so young now.

To those in their seventies (the decade I just entered) and beyond, who have been throwing themselves into the mix long before I got there, I am a plunker. A noob. A rookie.

What I love about Johnny’s comment is that it speaks to the unspeakable ageism which imprisons us all. That after a certain age, we aren’t meant to do cool things, try a new sport, take on some huge and monumental task.

What certain age is that, pray tell?

At what point, to those who deliver said side-eye, is anyone ridiculous for trying?

How about this story. A 92-year-old man hikes rim to rim on the Grand Canyon. Can you? The other day I read about a woman of 81 who hiked the Grand Canyon barely five months after pneumonia nearly took her out. Could you do that?

I couldn’t right now. Maybe in a year. But both of those people have considerable age on me and they both did something most of us couldn’t even countenance.

Age doesn’t convey wisdom, nor does relative youth guarantee competence or physical prowess.

As with all things, it depends. It depends on our attitudes, our willingness to train hard, eat well, surround ourselves with positive, like-minded people. that’s true of all ages.

Above all, to face every day and, as Amelia Earhart wrote in my favorite poem, Courage,

Call it fair.

You and I are Way Too Old to let a societal side-eye sideline us from a badass life, however we define it.

Who says we’re not supposed to even countenance the idea of learning to in-line skate. Or skateboard. Or paraglide. Or try trapeze work. Or aerial silks. Or whatever it was that got away from us as youths, and now beckons us back if we would only put in the training time. When does a timeline run out?

If we do such things, particularly if we sport grey hair, we are subjected to

“OH ISN’T THAT SO CUUUUUUUUUTE!”

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I am stinkeye-ing this patently stupid side-eye nonsense that anyone over a certain age shouldn’t give whatever it is a fair go.

A stinkeye is THE best response to the side-eye we get from folks who find us ridiculous when someone past a certain age gives something interesting a try.

Seemingly the worst insult that can be hurled at us is “elderly.” This article explains the changing meaning of the adjective. From that NPR piece:

"When you are 16 you wonder how an old man of 30 manages to drag himself around. When you get to be 30 you feel that 60 is as old as Methuselah. When you get to be 60 you will think that the 'aged' are those in their 90s."

I bristle at the word for what it connotes today: feeble, ancient, doddering.

So many people other folks call elderly are achieving things late in life most of us can’t possibly imagine. Nothing cute about any of it particularly because getting and staying in shape late in life is wicked-hard work.

It’s not bragging if you can do it. There is nothing cute about busting my ass at 70 to get back into prime shape after twelve big surgeries. It’s hard, painful, slogging, difficult and frustrating work and it is by god NOT for sissies.

My rehab at 70 is just as challenging as my training program ever was ten years ago as I prepped to summit, and did summit, Kilimanjaro. That was nothing compared to others. There are plenty of folks missing limbs, obese, blind, and far older who did precisely the same thing- all of whom stood triumphantly under that iconic sign just like I did.

The world is full of incredibly competent athletes twenty years my senior who would kick my ass as well.

You get my point. This notion that you and I can’t- or worse, shouldn’t even THINK about doing badass things past a Certain Age- is a jail sentence. Not just for us, but for all of us.

Those who side-eye us adventurous folks have already forfeited their futures by inculcating the idea that one can’t do much of anything past forty, or sixty or eighty and beyond.

Worse, the beliefs are a lie.

There is solid, irrefutable research that proves that how we think about aging determines how we age. If we judge anyone over a certain age as feeble, that is pretty much how our own lives will end up. We’ve already decided.

After forty my life is over. I’m a wreck. Grab the remote, find a recliner, and lemme melt into the seat cushions for the next four decades.

I could point to any number of very active elder athletes who didn’t even begin their sports until after the kids left home, so did the spouse, and then…so now what? Pick up a weight, put on a bathing suit, get on a bike…and then

Get out of their way.

That now what has become wow what for many. Here’s an article with a short list. I invite you to keep Googling further, for there are hundreds if not thousands of similar stories. And just to save you the time, here’s another article.

And one of my favorites, the story of Charles Eugster. He started bodybuilding at 87.

Plenty of quiet folks are out doing the same kinds of things without the fanfare. They’re our neighbors, the folks in the pew behind us, the men and women shopping at Trader Joe’s and rescuing dogs to be their hiking buddies.

You and I desperately need those people to disprove the ageist lies that we are fed from birth. Those lies are future killers, feeding us despair about aging. Our later years can be our absolute best, as long as we take our physical and mental health seriously.

Humans are a judgmental lot. We love to make fun of, mock and ridicule, especially those who are doing things we don’t have the guts to try. When some tiny Black woman well over a hundred heads out onto the track and runs a record time, we call her sweet or cute while she is engaging in serious badassery.

I’d like to see how many of us are out there on the track running well past 100.

It’s hard enough to age. It’s far harder to age in a ageist society which is eager to denounce and mock those of us who defy expectations and insist on writing our own history, full of whatever badassery fills our hearts.

As for Johnny, all I can say is for heaven’s sake, go for it. Be it paragliding, skydiving, spelunking, marathons, it makes not a whit of difference. From where I sit, the only thing holding us back is worrying about looking foolish.

I look plenty damned foolish and I do it anyway.

We don’t stop playing as we get old.

We get old because we stop playing. -George Bernard Shaw

Let’s play.

the author with a close friend in Nairobi

Warm thanks for spending a few minutes of your day with me. I hope the investment was worthwhile and you are moved to do something rash…okay, maybe not rash but at least ridiculously FUN. To that, consider also

If you know people who are worried that life ends at a certain decade, and who need to be reminded that (barring walking off a cliff backwards to take a selfie) that life is still full of options, consider

Either way, please find more fun in your life. It really does make us more youthful.