Age allows access

  I can remember wanting to be older. I'm certain you can too. Wanting to be old enough. It's a joke later, when you are old enough. We laugh about that. I saw this picture of myself, a recent photograph, and thought, I feel sad now that I've gotten old. It is more than enough! I am not sad about what has taken place in my life, just sad that I can't do it again. And it isn't that I would want to do anything differently. That isn't what I'm thinking about at all. I don't want a do-over I want a do it again. I would like to do it all again, without any knowledge of how it was going to turn out. 

  I don't know it was just a thought I had when seeing that photograph. Just who is that old guy? At some time someone will ask that question. I have old photographs that came to me through the family and there are a few where I say, who is that old guy? The image remains but the name is lost to time. I'm thinking maybe that is the sadness I felt in that moment. The sadness of knowing that my memories will one day be lost. No one else gets to enjoy them, memories are a personal thing, the most personal thing any of us have. I've been writing them down, sharing them with anyone that will listen, but with the knowledge they are all just stories to everyone else. The best I can hope for is they enjoy the story, the experience was mine and mine alone. 

 Maybe it is because the older we get the fewer people remember the younger you. We never think about our parents as young people. If they tell us about being young we just laugh and nod our heads. Yeah, sure you were. I heard stories from my parents friends and my aunts and uncles. Little anecdotes about life when my parents were young. I see pictures of my dad, in WW2. He is in uniform. I didn't think he was twenty two in those pictures, none of those guys were young, they were all old, at least old enough.    It's a strange thing when you look back and think about the ages. I remember my time in the Navy, I was in my twenties and thirties. At my last duty station I was given the name "father time" because I was viewed as that old. Yes, to someone in there early twenties, thirty eight is old. Today I am seventy one and seen by many as elderly. I felt old when I was twenty, well old enough to do as I pleased anyway. Isn't that why we want to be older? 

  Age allows access. I have surpassed all of that, I was given the senior discount years ago. I have qualified for social security. The original name proposed for that program was the Economic Security Act but it was changed by Congress. Back in 1935 when it was being discussed many called it an "old age" pension. That didn't set well with a good number of people. Is sixty five old? Well in 1935 the life expectancy for a white male was 61.7 years. Did Congress consider that when choosing the age at which you would get those benefits? The official line is, no, it had nothing to do with it. The age to receive benefits was raised to 67 back in 1983. The reason? People are living longer and are in general healthier. Sixty five isn't old enough. There is some talk of raising that age to 69 over the next eight years and even tying that in with life expectancy. The hope being you will work until you die and SS doesn't have to pay out. 

  It is rather ironic when you think about it. There was a time when the goal was to work your entire lifetime. People took pride in the fact that they could still contribute, even when it was only by passing on their knowledge and experience to others. The "old" workers were respected  for their knowledge, for the time they had devoted to learning their craft, whatever it happened to be. Today the goal seems to be to reach retirement. We are told to plan for that beginning in our early twenties. There are entire industries devoted just to that, helping us plan to retire. And what do we do when we retire? Well, that  depends upon several factors. The big two being health and wealth. 

  In my experience, I felt pushed out. The old guy isn't conforming to the new ways. He takes too long, that was good enough, no need to spend extra time making it look good. This way is much faster and cheaper! Hurry up, get this done, it's almost quitting time. You can't stay ten or fifteen minutes past five, that's overtime. And you definitely don't do that without getting paid for it. Just do the minimum amount required and move on. The goal is to retire, not to work. Yes it is a change, a shift in philosophy. The goal used to be to contribute, but today the goal is to receive. Get those retirement benefits and then you can do whatever you like. Age allows access, same as when you were a child. When I get old enough, retire from this world, what benefits will I enjoy? Well, that another discussion altogether.