I Am not 63 Years Young
And that's fine!
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If you ask a two-year-old how old she is, it’s considered perfectly fine for her to answer, “I’m two years old.” She can utter the word “old” in reference to her age, even though she’s only two and no one would consider her old. It’s a turn of phrase everyone understands; after all, you asked her how old she is, not how young she is.
Why, then, am I expected to say I’m 63 years young?
It seems to me like a rather desperate attempt to deny age. But why should age be something to deny?
But aren’t we middle-aged?
While on a hike recently with a friend who’s 69, I said something about us being old. She looked confused and said, “Aren’t we middle-aged”? I guess that depends what middle age means, but I certainly don’t expect to live to be 126, nor for my friend to get to 138. Okay, I know middle age is a range, not an exact middle point. But I still think I’m past it.
The Collins English Dictionary very helpfully defines middle age as “the period in your life when you are no longer young but have not yet become old.” It does go on to specify that this period is generally between the ages of 40 and 60. Wikipedia says middle age is “the age range from around 40 or 45 to around 60 or 65.” According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it’s between 40 and 60. The NIH puts it between 40 and 65. As lifespans have increased, middle age has crept up, so maybe I’m teetering at the edge of middle age.
That doesn’t feel right to me, though; everyone saying they’re middle-aged is like everyone saying they’re middle class. These days, I tell everyone I’m old. In fact, people are probably tired of hearing me say I’m old.
Why do I say it? Because I want to own it, to reclaim and redefine it. Because I appreciate so much about getting older.
How we feel about aging
How you feel about your age depends on so many factors. It’s funny to me now that when I turned 30, I had a bizarre idea that I should no longer wear short skirts. Turning 40 felt hard, because my life wasn’t where I wanted it to be and my best friend I’d grown up with had died a couple years before, making me more aware of my own mortality. I was ready to celebrate turning 50 but wary of divulging my age in public, because I was embarking on a career transition and was worried about age discrimination.
Turning 60, though, surprised me. Something shifted then, in a way I hadn’t felt with previous turns of decades. The birthday happened with minimal fanfare — though my friends were very kind about celebrating, it was 2021 and the world remained semi–closed down with covid. But it still felt like a seismic shift.
It’s not like I was suddenly a different person when I turned 60. But I felt a freedom I’d never felt before.
I’m fully aware this had a lot to do with my specific life circumstances. My fourteen and a half years in tech kept my IRA from being a disaster; Rafael and I don’t have children to support; our mortgage is reasonable for the Bay Area. It’s not like I can do whatever I want in my 60s — I still need to pay my bills. But arriving at the Medicare and Social Security decade eased the pressure to make as much money (let’s hope Medicare and Social Security are still there when I need them!).
Suddenly, it seemed okay to quit my job to get away from an increasingly frustrating boss. Suddenly, it seemed okay to face the uncertainty of what to do next.
But it felt much bigger than not having to earn as much money. It felt like I somehow had greater license to be myself. To do what I wanted.
I left my job at the end of December, and by mid-February I was working as a communications consultant. Later that year, as I turned 61, I started Flower Child.
The freedom of aging
As I’ve written before, I noticed my sixty-something friends were also doing new or expanded things: playing instruments, writing songs, getting degrees and certifications, doing standup comedy, starting businesses, making art, writing.
I was seeing more and more accounts of other older people branching out late in life — even a couple of comics who’d started in their 80s. I started thinking these vital older people were more common than I’d realized.
Why had no one told me it would be like this?
In fact, society in general had told me the opposite. It had told me to expect mental and physical decline, an inability to keep up with the modern world, decreased relevance — even lower worth.
Despite those messages, I really hadn’t known what to expect in my 60s. But the new decade wasn’t a downgrade. Suddenly, old age seemed like a time of expansion, not contraction.
It turns out Isabella Rossellini, a model of aging well, agrees with me:
“Ageing brings a lot of happiness. You get fatter and more wrinkles, and that’s not so good, but there is a freedom that comes with it. The freedom is: I better do what I want to do now, because I’ll be dead soon. So this is my last chance. Also, there’s a serenity that comes — I had the career I had, good or bad, I did the best I could, and now I continue pursuing what is interesting to me.”
I may well change my tune if I become infirm as I age; I’ve seen my parents deteriorate in startling ways, and it isn’t pretty. But not everyone goes through what they have — and for now, I’m appreciating so much about aging.
Do I miss my more youthful body’s greater ability to recover after insufficient sleep, or its comparative freedom from ailments and injuries? Of course I do. Do I wish I looked as good now as I did 20, 30, even 10 years ago? When I see old photos, I sure do. Do I think youth is wasted on the young? Most definitely.
But emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, I feel so much better now.
I have no problem saying I’m old, but that’s because I don’t think being old is such a bad thing — in fact, it’s good in more ways than I’d ever expected. I’m seeing that all around me, and I’m seeing it in myself. Why deny this reality? If we respected the freedom, clarity, and wisdom of old age (which come even to those of us who aren’t grandmothers), we might not feel the need to call ourselves young.
We should be celebrating the gifts of aging instead of denying it. We older people can be so many positive things without being youthful: vital, curious, active, joyful, wise, funny, compassionate, strong, present, interested, interesting. Even if our bodies aren’t what we’d like them to be, we can remain engaged in life and potentially feel more alive than ever.
We don’t need to call ourselves young to do this.
As you get older, have you felt the need to call yourself young? Do you prefer to think of yourself as young? I’d love to know what you think!
Great post, Rosana.
I'm 65, and, as you know, I do stand-up comedy as a hobby. Most of the comedians I perform with are half my age—or younger—and they all call me sir. Which is both polite and a reminder that I’m probably the only one in the green room who remembers rotary phones.
But here’s the thing about aging that doesn’t get said enough: it’s not just about aches, prescriptions, or forgetting why you walked into a room. It’s about stories. Layers. Punchlines that come from places deeper than just trying to be edgy or cool. At this age, I’m not chasing approval—I’m chasing the truth wrapped in a laugh. I don’t care if the audience thinks I’m old. I care if they think I’m funny.
The great thing about getting older is you stop giving a damn about what people think. That fear of looking stupid, being wrong, or bombing on stage? You’ve lived through worse. You’ve lived. And that gives you a kind of comedic power you can’t fake.
So let the kids have their energy and memes—I’ll take my lived-in perspective and the kind of timing you only earn with time.
I never tell my age, I let them guess and have fun with it.
I love this post. I think our generation is redefining aging in so many ways. I've discarded many of my own ideas about aging. Pretty sure I will always wear cutoff Levis, even once they are wearing me. I am happy to have the brand of confidence & resilience that I was only able to obtain through age and experience.