10 December 2004

Aunt Betty

--by Mike Murray

I never did understand to whom those grownups thought they were speaking. I mean, it couldn't have been me. Too many memories of my youth -- and of subsequent periods of my life, too, I'm afraid -- have drifted lazily away, never to be recaptured. But plenty remain.

How well I remember adults talking to me in tones and in phrases that were surely meant for someone else. Someone much younger than I. What did they think, that I was a kid or something?

From the time I could understand English, they had been telling me to "act my age." That was usually when they were scolding me. The implication at those times, I guess, was that I wasn't acting grown up enough. Mostly, though, they talked down to me.

It wasn't their fault. I imagine they just forgot how they felt when they were young. How many times, after all, have we adults been amused by the comments of a child of, say eight, who begins a sentence like this, "When I was a kid..."?

That should be our first clue: most of us become who we are rather early in life.

It dawned on me that I'd essentially been formed into Me at a young age when I was home on leave from the Army. As I took a walk down my childhood street, a youngster interrupted my stroll with a question that began, "Mister, can I ask you something?" Excuse me? Mister?

He couldn't have been talking to me. I looked around, believing that there was a grownup standing nearby (you know, someone 30 or 40 or 50 years old). But no. He was addressing me. I answered his question -- after first informing him that my name is Mike -- and then moved on, a little stunned.

I spent the rest of that day musing at the irony. Thus far in my life, I had been hoping that people would take me seriously enough (read: old enough, mature enough). And so quickly it had come to this. At the tender age of 20, someone was treating me like an "older person." And it freaked me out.

I'm told that women experience similar shock the first time they're Ma'amed. These days when I'm out shopping, I get a lot of this: "Sir, may I help you?" Some of it is a nod, I'm sure, to good sales practice (you know, treating the customer with respect). I'm just as certain, though, that my physical appearance is becoming a factor.

Therein lies the incongruity. The outward me is constantly undergoing change. But the inward me has changed so very little over the years. The person I am now is essentially the same person I was when I was counting my age in single digits.

Sure, I've matured. I've learned to control impulses (well, at least a little). And my attitudes have changed some. But I'm the same me. Just as I once thought that people were treating me younger than I really was, I am now beginning to wonder if I'm being treated older than I am.

All of which brings me to Betty. Aunt Betty, as she encourages everyone in the neighborhood to call her. In deference to chivalry and custom, I won't reveal her age. I don't know what it is anyway.

Doesn't matter. If it's true that "you're only as old as you feel," then Aunt Betty is but a whippersnapper. She walks with a spring in her step and a twinkle in her eye that belie her chronology.

When I chat with Aunt Betty, I see in her a little girl, a teenager, a young woman, a fully matured adult. They're all the same her. She is the person she has always -- and always will -- be. Mostly I see sparkle and exuberance and enthusiasm.

She has known her share of sadness and tragedy. But she copes. She carries on. And she delights the neighborhood with her charm and her approach to life. (Well, that and delicious baked goods!)

I used to say that I hope I'm still as young as Aunt Betty when I reach her age. Truth is, I never was.