One Thing or Another Column
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LGBT Senior’s One Thing or Another: Life, Aging, and the Absurdities Of It All – The Go-Go Years
By Mark McNease
The Go-Go Years: Doing, Going, Seeing While We Can
My husband Frank talks a lot these days about our ‘Go-Go’ years, that time of life we’re in when it’s probably a good idea to do the travel we want to, go to the places we’d like to see, and do the things our bodies still permit us to do. We love to cruise, and sail away on at least two a year. But we also like to take short, two-night trips here and there, and even a long one coming up in April – my first road trip since I was a child. Eight nights, with stops in Roanoke, Savannah, Wilmington, and Baltimore. That’s a lot of travelogues!
Financial advisors use the term to describe this window of time — early retirement, roughly — when we’re healthy enough to move about unaided. I’m exaggerating, but that’s the basic premise. I also have to say I don’t refer to myself as retired, since I teach workshops, write scary novels, and create the kind of content you’re reading now. This time precedes the Slow-Go years, and finally the No-Go years, which seem self-defining.
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One Thing Or Another: Life, Aging, and the Absurdities Of It All – The Drawer of Things We’ll Never Throw Away
By Mark McNease
Every home has one, and ours has several. Not the junk drawer. That’s different. The junk drawer is innocent, cluttered through no fault of its own. It has batteries, rubber bands, expired coupons, a screwdriver that doesn’t belong anywhere else. Maybe a hammer for no discernable reason. That drawer has plausible deniability.
I’m talking about the other drawer. The drawer of things we’ll never throw away.
It might be in a desk. Or a bedroom dresser. Or tucked into a cabinet no one opens unless they’re looking for something specific and end up standing there longer than they intended. You don’t organize this drawer. You visit it.
Inside mine
A program from a musical I don’t remember seeing.
A couple of old photos that never made it into my scrapbook.
Several keys of mysterious origin and purpose.
A napkin from a restaurant I’ve never been back to.
Loose match sticks. -
One Thing or Another: Life, Aging, and the Absurdities Of It All – Staying Visible As We Age
One Thing or Another: Life, Aging, and the Absurdities Of It All – Staying Visible As We Age
By Mark McNease
Stay tuned for the return of the One Thing Or Another Podcast: Interviews and Conversation
There’s a moment that comes with aging, a sort of chronological line we cross, when we realize that visibility is no longer something society affords everyone in equal measure.
Earlier in life, being visible often felt like a requirement. We showed up, spoke up, proved ourselves. Being seen was tied to usefulness, productivity, and momentum. Along the way, many of us also learned how to edit and censor ourselves, lowering our voices, choosing our words carefully, deciding when to speak and when to let things pass. Those habits don’t disappear just because the years do.
And then one day, it all shifted. We became older, and invisibility entered our lives whether we invited it or not. Clerks talked past us. Conversations moved forward without our input. Our experiences were acknowledged politely or not-so-politely, then set aside.
