He did what folks who really know me know not to do: He said, "You are young."

Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils

I was in the neighborhood Ace a few weeks ago waiting to check out, and, as is the case in neighborhood stores, there’s a kind of “yesteryear familiarity” and darn near everybody knows everybody by name.

This particular day, Mott was ribbing a guy behind me. Don’t ask me what; I was rummaging in my fanny pack to find that elusive card so as not to hold anybody up—not the holdup so common in these times, mind you. Anyway, he said to the guy, “If you weren’t behind that young lady, I’d have said what I really wanted to say!”

I turned to look at the man in mock confusion. “What young lady? I know he can’t mean me because I am not young!” I didn’t add that, standing there with materials for fixing something that needed fixing at my house, I was not a lady!

He did what folks who really know me know not to do: He said, “You are young.”

To heck with holding up the line. I said, quietly and matter-of-factly, with nary a touch of anger, “I am not young. I do not wish to be young. I have earned every gray hair on my head. They stand for experience.”

He knew me not, so he continued to attempt to “reason” with me, to show me that I should be flattered that he considered me young, never mind the lady part, which would have consumed even more time.

I turned to face him. He looked to be “sixtyish.” I’m not good at guessing ages. It’s not that important to me. “Do you want to be young?”

When he affirmed what so many people feel, I challenged him. “You mean you’d want to live all your years over—in these times, the way things are today? ”

He believed that, having those years again, we “could change things”; and I asked him, point blank: “In all your years, what have you changed?”

No, I do not want to be young. To be called young is for me a disclaimer. It means that people don’t see me as a person, a real person, seasoned, experienced, gifted with wisdom. People say that only clothes get old, but I am older than all my clothes! Poof with that argument!

Consider what erasing 20, 30, or 40 of your years would mean?

For me, it would be a living hell! The most important people in my life would be erased, and I’d be surrounded by folks with whom I’d never danced to “Stay in My Corner”; “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” would bring no tears on I-94; and I’d long for no “one more movie in a dark theater” to be buried in a warm chest, strong arms shielding me from cinemascopic monsters.

It also would mean no granddaughters to love like crazy—or whose grammar or irresponsibility to challenge. At 35 or 40, I’d have none, and, for heaven’s sake, who’d I pick for my BFF?

Naaaa… I don’ wanna be young, and you do me no favor when you look at me and call me “young lady”! You’re dismissing everything that it has taken to make me me, and replacing it with your values.

No thanks! I welcome another year Tuesday. “I Am Woman” … and, like Maya, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now!

Story Posted:09/01/2016