When do we actually become senior citizens?
The years keep adding up, but somehow we never feel quite as old as the number suggests
Every Sunday, we go to church in Jebel Ali, and it is usually packed to the gills. People stand at the back, squeeze into corners and spend the first few minutes looking around for a vacant seat.
Yet there are two or three pews right at the front, closest to the altar, reserved for senior citizens, particularly the elderly or infirm.
Strangely, these seats can remain empty for quite some time.
Then, halfway through the service, someone — and not necessarily someone who looks particularly elderly — quietly walks in and occupies one.
Nobody says a word.
My wife and I have always avoided those seats. We have felt that if someone older, or someone who genuinely needed a seat, came along, the seats should be available.
On one occasion, however, there wasn’t much space, so we reluctantly took two of the reserved seats at the front.
We had barely settled down when an over-officious usher appeared and politely informed us that these seats were reserved for senior citizens.
I looked at her and asked:
“What age?”
She smiled.
It was a lovely, polite smile, but I knew exactly what it meant: Sir, let us not go there.
She suggested that we move to the next row.
We did.
Growing older gracefully
I couldn’t help smiling afterwards. There is something rather amusing about getting older.
Most of us don’t mind the years passing. What we don’t particularly like is being treated as old.
You can be well into your later years and still feel much the same as you did years ago. You can work, travel, drive, climb stairs, go to the gym and get on with life. You still have plans, opinions and ambitions — and occasionally the feeling that you know better than people half your age.
Then someone directs you towards a seat marked “senior citizens” and you wonder when, exactly, you acquired the title.
The funny thing is that our idea of old age changes as we do.
When I was a child, anyone over fifty looked ancient. Fifty seemed an age when you should speak quietly, dress sensibly and probably know the names of every plant in the garden.
Then I reached fifty.
It suddenly seemed far too young to be called old. A few years further on seemed more appropriate.
Then those years arrived.
They didn’t feel old either.
Age vs ageing
Perhaps that is because age is not quite the same thing as ageing. The years accumulate, but the person looking out from behind the eyes still feels remarkably familiar. We remember ourselves at twenty, thirty or forty rather vividly, and those memories don’t come with an expiry date.
Shakespeare had a rather less flattering view.
In As You Like It, he describes the final stage of the seven ages of man as “second childishness and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
Wonderful writing, but hardly the sort of quotation you would want on a birthday card.
To be fair, Shakespeare was writing in a very different age. Living into old age was far less common, and the realities of being elderly were very different.
Today’s senior citizens are a different proposition altogether.
Many, like me, are still working full-time. Others are travelling, volunteering, learning new skills and keeping remarkably busy. Some are even running marathons — something I suspect Shakespeare never had to consider when describing the seven ages of man.
Older but not out of touch
Technology has changed things too. People who once thought a mobile phone was a luxury now use smartphones, video calls, online banking and social media as naturally as the younger generation. Being older no longer automatically means being out of touch.
And perhaps that is the point. A number on a birth certificate tells you how long you have been around. It doesn’t tell you how you feel, what you can do, what you still want to achieve or how much life you have left to enjoy.
So perhaps “senior citizen” is simply a description, not an identity.
I have decided I can live with it.
I may not be infirm, but I’m certainly not going to argue with my birth certificate.
So the next time I see those reserved pews at the front sitting empty, I may just walk over and sit down.
And if the usher appears again with that same polite smile, I’ll smile back and say:
“This time, I think I qualify.”
After all, if you’ve finally earned the privilege, you might as well enjoy the best seats in the house.
Michael Guzder is Executive Vice-President, Education at GEMS
