Today, I bought a newspaper from the paper guy in the subway (BART here in the SF Bay Area). "How's it going?" I asked as I handed over my paper and a dollar."Can't complain. My old bones still strong," he stated firmly.
"I hear ya!" I replied instinctively wanting to form some sort of fleeting community with this strong older man.
"Yeah, we done seen it all and come out unscathed and unburdened," he offered.
"Yessir, that's true," I confirmed.
Then he gave me a quizzical look . . . like he wasn't sure about me somehow. A moment passed and then he asked, quietly, "How old are you?"
And I suddenly felt like a 14-year-old trying to bluff my way into some sort of after-hours party.
"56," I said.
"I'm 83," he replied as if to confirm membership in some community that I couldn't possibly think about joining.
I slunk away with my paper and realized that I'm too old to have street cred with anyone in their 40s or younger (because 40ers think they're still 30ers) and not old enough to have any cred with the truly old, i.e., those 60 and above. I'm in a no-man's-land of aging.
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