Recently a friend and I were talking about all of the activity deals we’ve seen on Groupon. Escape rooms, belly dancing, milking a goat, there’s no end to what you can do with $50 and a couple of hours to kill. But then, when I mentioned that I saw a deal for skydiving and said there’s no way I’d ever try it, she asked, “Why? Because you think you’re too old?”
“Too old? That didn’t even cross my mind,” I answered before quietly deleting her contact information from my phone. “No, I don’t want to skydive because crashing face first into a longhorn bull doesn’t sound very fun. Same reason I didn’t want to skydive when I was 20, 30 and 40 years old. Plus, how awful would it be to die in a jumpsuit?”
I know she didn’t mean to be rude with her comment, but it’s stuck with me ever since because it made me realize that I really don’t care if what I do is age appropriate. Rather, I care if what I do is something I enjoy and if I don’t have to drive too far to do it. I wouldn’t even meet George Clooney if it meant heading downtown during rush hour. I’d Facetime him from the couch. I just haven’t ever seen a dividing line between “things for young people” and “things for old people.” To me, real age limits don’t exist. Only perceived ones.
That said, of course there are plenty of activities I have no interest in doing, but that’s because I’m pretty in touch with what I like and don’t like, not because I reached a certain birthday milestone. Pole dancing? No. Pampered Chef parties? No. The Puppetry of the Penis show in Las Vegas? Well, I’m kind of on the fence about that one. I could probably be tempted with free tickets if you have a connection to the X-rated theater world. Hit me up.
Of course, maybe you’re not as evolved/don’t give a f-ck/free spirited as me. Maybe you think you’ve aged out of certain things. Maybe you’re worried about looking stupid, or hurting yourself, or resorting to paddle violence when you try to play ping pong with a millennial and they won’t stop Instagramming with the caption “#Ballerz.” And if so, I urge you to do this: get over it. Do what you want to do. Live how you want to live. And if it’s tough, tell yourself one of the following to help you:
- There’s no age limit on joy
- If I survived the 80’s, I can survive anything
- I have Motrin in my purse
- Worse comes to worse, I’ll finally make the nightly news
And if what you decide to do is go skydiving, give me a call. There’s no way in hell I’ll join you in your plummet, but I’ll definitely make sure you don’t land on a longhorn.
This post is made possible with support from AARP’s Disrupt Aging. All opinions are my own.
