YOU REALIZE how old you must look with your walking stick when a well-meaning stranger helps you go down the steps of a suddenly stopped escalator with a proffered arm for support — let me help you down, Lolo. What happened to “Kuya” or even “Tatang”?* And this offer of assistance is sincere and not mocking. (You’re also holding back an ever longer line of people behind you.)
Getting used to being accorded respect in queues at the ATM and restaurant seats can be heartwarming. Respect for the elderly is embraced by our inclusive culture.
At family reunions and parties, the number of people who stand up to greet and kiss you is greater by a ratio of five to one than those you must stand up and touch cheeks with (unless it is a stag party).
Here are some patterns of behavior from those of you who have used your senior discount cards over a decade now.
You attend wakes more often and the only one you know there is lying down with a window over his face. Your role can be to give a nice eulogy full of reminiscences, if you can still remember names and places, as well as who the honored one happens to be.
The topics of your conversation with peers have to do with wellness, mainly the damage control variety for a variety of ailments. Over coffee you exchange numbers related to blood pressure, cholesterol levels, along with the declining value of your investments in equities.
You decide to do something about how you look (fat) and take up a new hobby like Tai Chi. You hunt through your old wardrobe to check which clothes still fit, hopefully something loose and dark to hide the curves. (Check for missing buttons.)
There are more clothes in your storage room than in your closet. Why did you get so many winter clothes for the trips you used to make?
You notice your gray hair multiplying and no one explaining them away as a hereditary trait. Or worse, you have no gray, black, or white hair to speak of, but a uniform shade of dark brown skin which extends to your ear lobes. The telltale color of real hair is still evident in the eyebrows and renegade strands peeping out from the ear and nose.
You find you are too busy to be scheduled for another executive checkup — has it been two years already? Except for minor headaches when you move your head too fast at the sight of bra straps, you tell yourself you feel fine… for your age. Maybe, after a major slip and fall, a visit to the ER may be necessary, sometimes in an ambulance.
As for conflicts and conversational debates on politics, including those in other countries, you tend to be more of an observer watching a verbal tennis match. Who’s keeping score?
You accept contrarian opinions. You realize that other points of view are acceptable. It’s better to agree on some harmless things like the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements or the easing traffic at EDSA. You can laugh at harmless jokes about fake news and the use of AI to make celebrities do jigs set to music.
In chat groups, others may post videos of enjoying a meal at an exclusive Japanese sushi shop in Kyoto just to prove their affluence. (It takes at least six weeks to reserve a table in this restaurant.) Yes, everybody knows how wealthy they are. No need to start an investigation into unexplained wealth.
Things that used to irritate you, like secret allies that sing the praises of a nearby continent, post videos of fake crowds in political rallies, or prone to debate any issue, political or religious, you just shrug off. Why bother? Why convince anyone to take your point of view? Life is too short.
Even conflict in chats can be invigorating, especially as you ignore the toxic repartees and name calling. Anyway, posts can be cleared at any time without having to leave the group.
You are now more comfortable with yourself. You are no longer living somebody else’s idea of who you should have been. You know what you can no longer hope for. You are who you are. And that’s just fine.
*Grandfather instead of Older Brother or Father.
Tony Samson is chairman and CEO of TOUCH xda.