Oh, The Shame!

A Broadway show triggers old memories and new surprises

Shutterstock Photo ID: 2452454197  photographer: Halfpoint

My husband and I have lived in New York City for half a century – more than half of our lives. Although the city is expensive to visit, we, like many of our co-inhabitants, have discovered ways to make it more manageable.  For example, unlike many of our out-of-town visitors, we seldom spend money on Broadway shows.

Recently, however, we decided to have a date night and, on the suggestion of a friend, bought partial view, less expensive orchestra tickets to “Once Upon a Mattress,” starring Sutton Foster. To my surprise, the play, which had originally starred the comedian Carol Burnett, brought up lovely memories of watching the Carol Burnett Show on television with my family when I was young. The musical itself seemed familiar, but I couldn’t remember how or when I would have seen it.

I was rolling that question around in my mind while I was standing in line for the toilet during intermission. As often happens in these lines, several of us started chatting about the show. One woman mentioned something about Carol Burnett, and, thinking I had found someone in the Third Age whose memories might help me clarify my own, I asked her if she had seen the original show. She said, “The original show?” in horror and turned away from me to whisper something to her friend. And while the other women in line and I continued to chat, she did not look at me again.

I was troubled as I went back to my seat. What had I done or said that had been so offensive to her? I couldn’t figure it out.

I let it go as I chuckled through the second act and had odd snippets of memories of seeing Burnett in the part.

Since my family watched the Carol Burnett television show together when I was young, it was possible that the images were from a skit on the show. On the way home, I did an internet search on my phone and discovered that while there was a movie, the entire production had been on television. That was the version I was remembering.

One problem solved, but I didn’t think the internet was going to offer any solutions to the puzzle of what I might have said to offend the woman in line for the toilet. I shouldn’t have been so cavalier. After researching “Once Upon a Mattress,” I checked my email. My friend Judy Rabinor, whose essay I put up recently on “Aging Without a Map,” had sent out a link to an interview with Melinda Blau, a journalist and the author of the book The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter

 

This is 80: Veteran Journalist Melinda Blau Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire

Blau is eighty years old, and in the interview, she talks about the complexities of aging. She recognizes some of the difficulties but also celebrates the opportunities for growth. As I read her responses to the interview questions, I suddenly began to wonder if the lady in the line had been upset because I implied that she was old enough to have seen the original play.

I think she was probably younger than me, but I had meant no insult. It’s true, sometimes I can’t tell whether someone is sixty-five or seventy-five years old these days. But I was reaching out to her as a fellow Third Ager, someone who might be able to fill in a gap in my own memory. Since she was talking about Carol Burnett, I imagined she was also making a comparison that the younger people in the audience could not.

Instead of camaraderie, I now wonder if she felt shame at being seen as “old.” I’ve gotten so used to talking about being in this stage of life and to sharing some of the ups and downs and ins and outs of the path we’re mapping together that I forgot that some people don’t want to go there. I should know better.

I have a number of clients who struggle with parents, often baby boomers, who refuse to admit that they are getting older. Some get sick without making provisions for their own care, and some die without preparing their children for taking care of the aftermath. One of these clients recently told me, “My mom still lives by the ‘don’t trust anyone over 30’ mantra your generation developed in the anti-establishment era. But it’s a problem today, not just because obviously everyone in that generation is way over 30. But you’re so focused on staying young that you don’t pay attention to reality.”

She’s right. Of course I have no way of knowing what was going on for the woman in the line, but I’m sorry that I “outed” her, if that’s what the problem was. But reading Blau's interview, I found myself wondering, again, why we aren’t patting ourselves on the back instead of hiding our age and worse, feeling ashamed of it. Fortunately a number of articles and books by us Third Agers capture the  struggle to deal simultaneously with the many difficulties of aging and find ways to live as fully as we can, for as long as we can.

A truly rich life, it seems to me, has to take both sides of this coin into account. There are many things we can no longer do. We suffer from pains we never imagined when we were younger. We have wrinkles and spots and growths on our skin and less hair on our heads. Many of us have to wear ugly shoes. We don’t remember things as clearly as we once did. We are facing loss, illness, and death, whether we want to or not.

But we also have many strengths and gifts. We can appreciate the moments that we are living now while also making plans for what comes next. Getting older is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, we will enjoy the richness of our lives in the present even more if we can own our age, our weaknesses, and our assets without apology or shame.

Shuttertock Photo ID: 2135148351 Photographer: Bricolage