Last week, I found myself with an unexpected five-hour layover in a busy airport. With time on my hands, I took up residence on the corner of a near-empty coffee bar and set up my computer to hammer out this column. Well… not this column. The planned topic was something entirely different, but the conversation at the coffee counter took me in a new direction.
Interactions with fellow travelers kept pulling me from my keyboard and into an evolving conversation about aging. As people came and left the coffee bar, they heard threads of the dialog and entered the conversation to add their own perspective on aging.
This conversation on aging started with an unlikely connection. Stacy, the twenty-something barista, sat at the counter working on a college paper between serving customers. She asked if I was traveling for work or pleasure. When she learned I was traveling from a conference on aging, the flood gates opened.
“Older adults are important,” Stacy said describing her own perspective on aging. “I learn a lot from them.” She described her family’s multi-generational household and where she’s seen her relatives care for each other across the generations. Grandparents caring for grandchildren, parents caring for aging parents, and grandchildren benefiting from the wisdom handed down by her grandparents. “I hate that people look down on old people. My grandparents are not the only older people I learn from. The customers here, many of them are a lot older than me. They’ve lived a lot. They know a lot. I like to talk to them about where they’re going. Where they’ve been. I can learn a lot about the world just from this coffee counter,” she said.
Bravo, Stacy! We can all learn a lot from the ‘counters’ where we sit if we open ourselves to seeing the world through another person’s perspective.
By this time, Carol from New York, sat at the counter to enjoy coffee and a muffin. Listening to the conversation on aging she asked about my work. Talked tuned to public policy to create an age-friendly America. Communities where people can live their best lives across the age-span. Carol added her perspective on aging. “I work in education, designing innovations in education for children but what I hear you saying is so important,” Carol said. “When we start aging, we need to be sure we can be cared for as we get old.”
Not at all disagreeing with her perspective, but taking that thought a bit further, I asked Carol at what point she thought we “start aging”. Carol paused for quite a little while. Not wanting to leave her hanging I offered a thought, “the way I see it, if we’re breathing, we’re aging.”
With another thoughtful pause, Carol replied, “You’re right. I never thought about that. Aging isn’t just my parents or my grandparents, it’s me. It’s the kids in our classrooms. This is about all of us, isn’t it?”
Carole and I talked for another 20 minutes about cross-sector public policy befitting people across the lifespan. About the benefits of creating communities where people of all ages can stay engaged and contribute.
A third traveler, Thomas, sat across the counter from us mid-conversation. He offered that aging is something he has been thinking a lot about lately. As a Florida landscape business owner, Thomas said he thinks about what his post-retirement life will look like. Thomas was traveling to Milwaukee to visit high school friends who get together at least once each year. “These guys, this over-60 group, knows what it’s like. It seems like once you reach a certain age, people start looking over you. Looking past you, but not this group. They know me and see me for who I really am, not just an ‘old’ man.” Thomas went on to say he doesn’t want to keep doing the work he’s doing much longer. It’s too physical but he can’t imagine doing nothing and he will need to work to supplement his retirement income. “I don’t know who will hire me at this age. I have a lot to offer, but I am worried no one will see or value that.” It’s a sentiment we hear a lot at the Area Agency on Aging. Older adults trying to enter or re-enter the workforce cite many ageist barriers.
A fourth traveler, a man originally from Canada now living in Maryland and traveling to get home in time to see his son’s soccer game, weighed in that as a busy father, husband, businessman he struggles to ensure his parents, who live a great distance from him, have the care they need to continue to live in their own home. We talked about caregiving needs and the importance of public policies to support the infrastructure to ensure caregivers can stay engaged.
The coffee shop conversation confirmed what I already knew to be true. Aging is a thread that connects us all. When we pause long enough to reflect on our own experience of aging across the lifespan, and what we want for ourselves, our families and our communities, there’s a lot we can agree on.
An aging population is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be embraced and a resource to be tapped. An aging population can enhance the social cohesion, cultural diversity, and economic innovation of the nation, making it a better place for everyone. As the poet Robert Browning wrote, “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.”
Christine Vanlandingham is CEO of Region IV Area Agency on Aging in Southwest Michigan. Questions on age or independence services? Call the Info-Line for Aging & Disability at 800-654-2810 or visit areaagencyonaging.org. The Generations column appears each weekend in The Herald-Palladium.