What Being Old Means

Beloved actor Ed Asner, who died last week at the age of 91.

By Andrea Rouda

EVERY SO often my husband, 11 years my junior, and I discuss aging. I tell him it has little to do with your age in years. It has nothing to do with wrinkled skin or physical decline, or even mental decline. It is simply letting go of popular culture and thus losing touch.

My first mistake was not getting a Twitter account years ago because I thought it was dumb. I still do, but apparently everyone who’s anyone, including captains of industry and political leaders, people far older than I, is busy tweeting.

So, not being on Twitter, I still don’t understand what a hashtag is, despite my son explaining it to me countless times. I suppose I get it, sort of, but again, it seems pointless. Why would you want to go where everyone else is? I’m mystified.

Next came TikTok, something which I have yet to see or certainly understand. But yesterday’s New York Times printed an article about “the greatest TikTok star ever,” or at least today — a young girl who posts videos of her life from her bedroom and now she’s rich and famous and so is her entire family, all of them making deals for TV shows, product endorsements and who knows what else because I stopped reading.

Suddenly I realized that millions of people are spending their time looking at smart phones or iPads or computers and watching other people who are actually living life. And meanwhile I’m just living my own life and have never even heard a song by Billie Eilish. Instead, I’m sad that Ed Asner died.

That’s old.

Ed. Note: The other day I heard that Abba was going to release a new album in November and was excited to report that to my younger cousin.  He responded, “Really, Abba? You’re old.” 

—Andrea Rouda blogs at The Daily Droid.