I Must Be Officially Old

Several years ago on the eve of my 50th birthday I received my first invitation to join the AARP.  Of course, there is nothing wrong with the AARP--I'm now a member--but come on.  I was only forty-nine years old and trying desperately to hang onto the last vestiges of whatever youth I falsely could claim.  If that wasn't bad enough, they kept sending invitations, reminding me how old I really was.  The entire episode was a total downer.

Now that I'm old enough to claim Social Security Benefits, although I have yet, I no longer have any delusions of being in my middle age.  I gladly and proudly joined AARP in the hope of garnering important discounts on hotel rooms or auto insurance or whatever other scam might also be available to we old geezers.

However, today I learned that I truly am old at the age of only sixty-two.  How?  Not AARP, as they'd found me more than a decade ago and I eventually succumbed.

Now, the Scooter Store has found me.  Yep.  They're ready to help me get a Power Chair and help me maintain my mobility and independence.  Lucky me.

Intellectually, I know that it is not only older citizens that use Power Chairs.  Intellectually, I accept that it has nothing to do with age and that even the young can need them.  Emotionally, it feels just like getting that first AARP invitation a dozen years ago.  Bummer.

In closing I'll confess that just prior to getting today's mail and finding this little bombshell, I was out driving around the countryside in my Porsche Carrera and shopping for new leathers and stirrup irons for my most recent distraction--riding horses.  Hey, maybe I'm not as old as they think.