Growing Older

I was born in 1946 the first of the baby boomers. Now that powerful generation which demanded attention by the sheer force of its numbers has reached retirement age. I wonder whether we will continue to carry the weight to which we have become so accustomed.

I have always been able to say that each stage of my life was better than the preceding. Now I wonder. More than aches and pains and the physical degeneration of the body, I worry about the lack of respect that older women generally experience. Will I reach the place where no one listens to what I have to say? When repair men, and doctors, and adult children assume that my brain power declined with my physical power?

Mom in her later years would sometimes have Jim make calls for her—not because she was incapable but because she knew he would make more of an impact. She told me, “No one listens to what an old lady has to say.”

Maybe I should move to China where the elders are revered for their wisdom.