Photo by Joshua Kessler
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Being 60: A New Age for Aquarians
By Linda Ellerbee, May & June 2006
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I celebrated turning 60 by backpacking 200 miles across England. Alone. Yes, on purpose. When I returned home, I was given a leather-bound book filled with loving birthday letters and notes from friends and family. I have since learned that due to the miracle of desktop technology, this is not an uncommon gift, and although I'm not fool enough to believe everything everybody wrote, sometimes, in the wee-small Sinatra hours, when I'm feeling unloving and unloved, I clutch my birthday book and whisper, "How kind of them."
Lately I've begun to think that during this decade of my life I'm going to need a crash course in kind. I mean, I'm only 61 and I'm already pissed. My anger is not about aging (well, maybe a little). As has been noted, growing old is mandatory (growing up is not). What winds me up is what people younger than I am think about someone my age. Nothing I say will surprise someone older than I, but for a person still test-driving her 60s, I've already discovered it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Start with looks. That magazine with the tease on the cover: "How To Be Beautiful At Any Age." I open the magazine to discover "any age" apparently stops at 59.
Television? I own a TV production company. We sell programs to networks. They don't want programs aimed at people my age. They say it's because advertisers don't want me. But wait a damn minute. Maybe I don't switch face creams according to the latest commercial, but I have been known to switch cars, guys, and they cost more.
Party conversation? "You're in your 60s? Really? How wonderful.… Uh, excuse me, but I think I see my 18-year-old yoga teacher over there. Did I mention that she can twist both her legs over her…well, never mind. Nice talking to you, ma'am." Could everybody please stop calling me ma'am? I am not your elderly Aunt Matilda, and, no, I don't need help finding the ladies' room. Not if the print on the door is big enough.
My trouble is, I've been listening to the wrong teachers. I've been allowing young to define old.
Stop trying to make us feel inadequate, or worse—invisible. Stop trying to tell us how to stop being us. My trouble is, I've been listening to the wrong teachers. I've been allowing young to define old. We used to say, "Don't trust anybody over 30." Now I say, "Don't trust anybody under 60," and when I want life lessons, I look ahead. I look to Alice Warden, who fell deeply in love again when she was 65, to my pal George, who unretired himself at 70 to teach AIDS education in South Africa, to Golda Meir, who was 71 when she became prime minister of Israel, to George Burns, who won his first Oscar at 80, to my mother-in-law, Elizabeth, who, at 93, lives alone, works out, drives, and will argue politics at the drop of a Republican. And I look to my friend the late Julia Child, who, for 91 years and 363 days, faced each day with gusto. All these people? A testament to staying keen on life.
I want to be them when I grow up. If I believe I can, it's because I come from a generation of believers. We believed we could change the world for the better. We believed in fighting injustice toward people of color who simply wanted rights guaranteed them in our Constitution. We fought to give women equal pay—and control over their own bodies. We weren't afraid to stand up and be counted (the sophisticated, immaculately turned out, and industrial-strength-competent NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell attended her college graduation ceremony wearing a gas mask in protest against the Vietnam War). Our generation also fought and died in that war.
That's who we were then. But we are not untouched by life. Rather, we have looked at it from both sides now: war, cancer, heart attacks, divorce, substance abuse (and recovery), blended families, joint custody, depression, bankruptcy, widowhood, dreams dashed, hopes abandoned—love lost and love found. Been there. Done that. And we're still here. Still boogying when the music's right. On that subject, never forget that our music was and is better than yours. Hell, we built this city on rock 'n' roll.
And so, as we roll head-on into our 60s, I ask myself: What's it going to be? Are we to tiptoe quietly offstage? I think not. Perhaps we want to stir the stew some more, dare to live large, to take chances. Maybe we want to keep on trying to change the world for the better. Or just make a scene. We do have practice in that.
Of all the letters in my birthday book, the shortest was my favorite. It came from Merle, who, after 30 years as a producer, quit and joined the Peace Corps. This is what Merle wrote: "Well, dearie, it's the Sixties again."
Excuse me, but, uh, right on.
Linda Ellerbee is a journalist, television producer, and author. Her latest book is Take Big Bites: Adventures Around the World and Across the Table (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005).
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