I hate this mentality that old age is a disability on its own
As if you turn 70 and suddenly all of your joints fall apart.
Today is Sunday. This past Wednesday my mother and I drove our 92 year-old spitfire of a cousin in-law a few hours round trip. The older woman walks well, has good mobility, has a little chronic pain in her neck from a car accident ten years ago but is otherwise incredibly healthy. Sharp as a damn tack, too.
My mother has been incapacitated from back spasms since Wednesday from sitting in the car for those hours.
Back in high school, on the train returning from a field trip to San Francisco, where we had walked multiple city blocks, I found myself seated in the row of seats near the entrance. “Federal law requires these seats be made available to the disabled, the pregnant, and the elderly.” I am disabled. I see no issue.
Across from me, in the other row of accessible seats, sit a couple of young men. I don’t know their stories, but I know that outwardly, they appear strong and healthy.
A few stops later a woman storms over to me with rage in her eyes, brandishing some sort of card (perhaps a senior rate clipper card? I’m unsure). She gets in my face, yelling how these seats are for seniors, and she’s a senior, and I need to get up. Now, this woman hardly looked a day over 55, but that’s not my business either. Flustered and unable to form a response, I stand up and give her my seat.
I am too short to reach the vinyl loops for passengers to hold. My knees are too wobbly for me to stay balanced, and my flat feet are burning.
One of the young men from earlier sees this, and insists I take his seat.
To this day I don’t know why that woman assumed that of all of us, I needed the seat least. I can only assume it was because I was the youngest.
Any time I mention back pain or joint problems, someone invariably asks, with a smirk, whether I’m too young for such things, or says almost proudly, “you think this is bad now, just wait until you’re my age.”
My disabled friends have been lectured for using scooters in grocery stores. How dare they, a young person, take the device from the more needy old people? The accoster may even take the time to gesture to a nearby elderly person, who is inevitably more spry and well than the disabled person being accosted (after all, there’s a reason that elderly person isn’t also using one of the scooters).
Airline staff have refused to help me place my luggage in the overhead compartment, even with a doctor’s note. They aid the elderly without being asked. A tall man always volunteers to help me, wondering why nobody else had. I never bother to mention my back.
For many people, age brings added pain and immobility. And those people need ready access to accommodations. But there is no magic switch that gets thrown the second you turn 65 that suddenly allows you to have back pain or need a wheelchair or walker.
My L3 vertebra doesn’t move. My trapezius is permanently taut due to kyphosis and prone to pinching my nerve. My hips are clicky and my knees lock up.
I know it’s going to worsen with age. But I am already in pain. I already cannot stand for long periods of time. I cannot sit on stools because I can’t hold up my own back.
This social requirement that I be old before I am recognized as disabled may well prevent me from reaching old age at all.
