The Middle 37. Symptoms of Living

Thoughts about my grandmother's elbows

I remember the smell of the old Honda Accord. I couldn’t describe it to you, but if I caught a whiff of it right now I’d be immediately transported back into that wine coloured car. I’d find myself sitting on a crisp grey passenger seat, with not a crumb or speck of dust in sight. My grandmother was an excessively clean person, after all. A trait I didn’t seem to inherit.

Grandma was faithful to Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum. If you were in her car, that green box was always within reach. You’d take a piece, and she would chastise you for not ripping it in half. Make it last longer. Get your money’s worth! Ever the economical woman, she was.

You’d chew that gum while rolling it’s silver wrapper into a ball to place in the grocery bag she hung from her gear shift. Faithful as she was to Doublemint gum, she was far more faithful to a makeshift garbage can. Like I said, she was an excessively clean person.

The gum was always disappointing, to be honest. Whether you were lucky enough to have a full one, or a torn half-piece, that gum turned into a hard and tasteless ball of cardboard in your mouth in no time.

Into the makeshift garbage can it goes.

I drove a lot with my grandma. To the mall, where we ate New York Fries. To church and back again. To the IGA corner store. To her house, back to mine. And, much of the time on those car rides, I played with her elbows.

It sounds strange, I suppose. But, as a child, I loved my grandmother’s elbows. The skin around them was loose. Stretchy. Delightfully full of wrinkles. I would run that soft skin between my fingers while I chewed my cardboard gum and we would talk and talk.

I didn’t see her aged skin as a problem, but as a comfort. The warm texture was familiar to me. I could palpate it between my fingers and relish in the squishiness of it. Now that I’m an adult, I know this thing I loved about my grandmother was probably something she hated. Aging and loose skin is not something we seem to pride ourselves in.

The other day I saw a clip of comedian Kristen Schaal speaking about her experience with aging. She explains with excellent dry wit, “I’m letting my face just naturally fall to my collarbones. I had to go on a journey with it ‘cause I was like ‘oh man, my face is changing’, ‘cause you know, [pause] I’m living longer.”¹

Living longer, what a shame.

We live in a culture that prioritizes and values youth, particularly for women. Aging is a battle, they say. And fighting it is an industry worth billions.

There is much to be said on this topic, and we could talk at length about the ways the system we live in privileges those who look “young for their age”. We could speak about how men are allowed to age like a fine wine, and women are expected to look perpetually youthful. We could speak about the connections between ageism and sexism, colonialism, racism, imperialism, and [insert ism here].

But as I write this I think about the people living under the threat of bombs and destruction. I think of the children who will never know a wrinkle on their own skin. War is not good for aging.

I think about the people who do not have homes and must sleep on the street. Homelessness is not good for aging.

I think of those who are unable to access healthcare. The 1.2 million who died from tuberculosis last year - a disease that literally has a cure². Lack of medical care is not good for aging.

I think of those who must decide between bill payments and groceries. Hunger is not good for aging.

I think of those who have been outcast, attacked, othered, and demonized. Not belonging is not good for aging.

It is almost as if we have been fighting the wrong thing. We have taken the wrinkled symptoms of living longer and turned them into the enemy, when the true war is not against our flesh but against the systems of oppression that keep people trapped and stressed at best, and dead under the rubble at worst.

When I think of all of these things, I realize that I don’t want to spend endless dollars and hours of this one, precious life trying to look like I haven’t lived it. Here’s to a long life, and liberation for all.

---

Hey, you. Yeah, you. Thank you for reading this. I don’t know where you are right now. Maybe you’re in a grocery store line-up, maybe you’re on the couch. Wherever you are, I’m sending a bit of love to you. Giving my words your attention is a gift I don’t hold lightly. Thank you.

1. Please watch it. She’s so funny. https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMSmoHYdV/

2. Can you tell I consume John Green content? Yes, “Everything is Tuberculosis” is on my TBR.