"You're not old!" Ageism at its finest.

Last summer, my husband and I were on a double date at a trendy restaurant downtown. The other couple – good friends of ours who had been living in another city for the season – were asking what they'd missed while being out of town. I wasted no time diving right in: "Well, I read the most incredible book; a manifesto against ageism!" I then spent the next four rounds of tapas excitedly sharing everything I'd learned: how age isn't binary, it's a spectrum; how ageism is the only universally experienced -ism; how I've changed my language from terms like "elderly" and "senior citizens" to "older adults" or "olders."

The couple across the table listened attentively, both women nodding along, encouraging my impassioned reawakening. My poor husband also listened patiently although he'd heard the spiel probably twelve thousand times since I read the book that started this all — This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite.

Every time I launch into this topic I step down from my soapbox reinvigorated by the cause. I'm thinking about ageism a lot. And even though my eyes are wide open to ageism now, I still find myself falling into some of the same old patterns. And when I hear myself, I cringe. One specific conversational rebuttal of mine comes to mind: my oft-repeated refrain of "you're not old!" 

Having spent the last decade or so working with older adults in some capacity or another, I've admittedly – although unintentionally – found myself following a well-worn script, giving canned responses to certain comments. One thing I used to do all the time was argue "Oh come on, you're not old!" whenever one of the residents at the CCRC (Continuing Care Retirement Community) would refer to themselves that way. They'd laugh in appreciation of my friendly contradiction, I'd give them an encouraging pat on the back, and we'd move right along, "old" left in our youthful, buoyant wake. 

I feel awful when I think about that script now: "Give me a minute to get up from this chair, Caroline – I'm an old man!" "Oh come on Mr. Smith, you're not old!" In other words: Old? Yuck! Us? Never!

It is so deeply ingrained in us – that "old" is bad, something to be avoided – that we'd rather jokingly resist the adjective than take the time and energy and cultural responsibility to reframe it as something less wicked. Every time I laughed and responded "you're not old!" to one of my friends, I reiterated the notion that old was something you'd never want to be. I thought I was helping them make light of something they maybe feared or resisted, but really I was saying "Don't call yourself old! Old is an awful thing to be!" 

But all that probably did was make them feel worse, because after they'd chuckle along with me and shake their heads with a smile, they'd be left – consciously or not – with the message that old was indeed bad. They'd also still know that factually, truly, undeniably they were in fact older. And I was telling them that being older – again, which they inarguably were! – was bad (Don't call yourself old! You should never speak so poorly about yourself!).

But "older" is a fact, not a reflection of value or worth. And my script denying that fact is only going to reinforce that older is bad and something we can't even mention without sarcasm or mocking laughter (oldness is just that sinister). And by saying old is bad, I'm saying: You are bad. Wrong. Not good. Which is just not true! And the last message I'd want to convey to someone. Anyone.

Dare I say older is not just "not bad" but... good?!

Besides being a quantifiable and undeniable fact of life, aging is an honor and a privilege. Getting older — having a long life — is something to be celebrated. Now when I hear someone begrudge their age, I think only of my brother who died earlier this year at 27 years old. * God, I wish he'd had the chance to get older. I wish it more than anything.

If I could do all those hundreds of conversations with my friends over again, I'd flip the script when they groaned about being "old". In fact, I wouldn't respond at all. I'd just smile, without the "No you're not!" knee jerk response.

Or I'd repeat my guru Ashton Applewhite's line, one I've parroted daily since reading her words: "We're all older than some people, younger than others." Then – if they allowed me – I'd hop right up onto my well-loved soapbox and give 'em the whole damn spiel. 

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Check out this poem I wrote about ageism that was featured on Ashton Applewhite's "Old School: Anti-Ageism Clearinghouse."

*See this post I wrote in April about grief.