The old gray mares

I’m not working much. But at 69, I’m still working.

To be clear, I’m only working a few hours a week or so, so I’m not making much of a living by still working. But it pays for travel, charitable and political donations, gifts. So why not? The longer I can put off fully tapping my retirement, the better.

That said, maybe this is the year I’ll finally pack it in. And I will if the work drifts off into nothingness, which it may well do as I do absolutely nothing to sustain my freelance employment. If something comes in over my transom, I decide in the moment whether to take it. Since I like the people who’ve hired me over the years, I mostly say ‘yes’. But if something/someone entirely new comes in, the answer is likely ‘meh.’

Perhaps if I’d had a more scintillating career, something I was more – gag – passionate about, I’d still want to have both oars in the water.

As it stands, the freelance work I do is writing, which is something I really enjoy doing. And, unlike the writing I do for my 100% non-monetized blog, and the short stories I write for my creative writing group, writing marketing copy for tech companies actually pays okay.

Although I’m not still working-working, I do have admiration for the women of a certain age, who are still hanging in there.

I think that Nancy Pelosi – at 78, an even older and grayer mare than I – does a great job.

Elizabeth Warren is my senator, and I’ve proudly voted for her twice.  She turns 70 this June, and is running for president.

As an aside on aging politicians, much as I like and admire E. Warren (and Hillary, for that matter), I really don’t want to have a president in her or his 70’s next time around - I’m looking at you, Joe Biden; and it goes without saying, if I could bear looking at him, I’d be looking at Trump, too. However, I do say stay in the Senate for a while longer, Liz.

But in truth, I wouldn’t mind seeing Nancy P give up her gavel in a couple of years (and take Steny Hoyer et al. with her).

I know this is ageist, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Silent Generation (born roughly 1925-1945) and the Baby Boomers have sufficiently f’d things up on the political front that it’s time to step the f aside and let Gen X f things up.

On the non-political front, Meryl Streep is a fellow 49-er, turning 70 this year. I’ll watch anything she appears in, and hope she keeps making movies forever.

I like Glenn Close, too. And at 71 she just won the best actress Golden Globe.

Joyce Carol Oates – one of my all time favorite authors – is still writing, and tweeting, at 80.

I’m delighted that, come March, Susan Zirinsky, at the age of 67, will be in charge of CBS News.

And, of course, there is the queen of them all, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She turns 86 in March. Live long and prosper, RBG.

It’s not just my imagination that there are a lot more older women out there doing stuff.

There are more women over 50 in this country today than at any other point in history, according to data from the United States Census Bureau. Those women are healthier, are working longer and have more income than previous generations.

That is creating modest but real progress in their visibility and stature. (Source: NY Times)

Of course, we do live longer.

In 2016, the average life span of women in the United States was 81.1, compared with men’s 76.1. Nearly a third of women aged 65 to 69 are now working, up from 15 percent in the late 1980s, according to recent analyses by the Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. Some 18 percent of women aged 70 to 74 work, up from 8 percent.

And, thus, we are working longer. Admittedly, in many cases, it’s because women need to. Still, plenty of us are doing so because we derive some pleasure or benefit

It’s not one big rose garden for older women, of course.

There are a ton of us, but when it comes to Hollywood there are a lot more starring roles for aging actors like Clint Eastwood and Liam Neeson than there are for the Streeps and Closes.

And there aren’t a lot of us in mega corporate positions, because there weren’t that many of us there to begin with.

Plus aging continues to impact the degree to which women are (mis)treated and (de)valued more than it does men.

There is a joke often repeated among women of a certain age: You can walk into a grocery store and shoplift whatever you want, because nobody will notice that you’re even there.

Well, I hadn’t thought of that benefit, but I won’t be testing it out any time soon. My shoplifting fear is that at some point I’ll be in an autopilot fugue state and get nabbed by security while walking out of CVS with a tube of Crest.

Anyway, this old gray mare is kinda-sorta hoping that, even if I didn’t have such a wonderfully high-powered, interesting, creative and magnificent career, there’s some sort of work for me as long as I want some sort of work.

I may not be Nancy Pelosi or Meryl Streep, but, hey (hay?), I’m not quite ready to be put out to pasture.