More Than the Sum of Our Years

 Soap is soap .... and I got a boxful.
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Ever come across something that just gets stuck in your craw? Yeah, me, too. Here's my latest ...
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A website offering virtual social groups had a simple questionnaire to fill out so they could recommend the appropriate group for you. One question was in the form of a dropdown box; it asked me to select my life stage.

I do not think that means what they think it means ...​

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Instead of the options being related to actual life stages, the given options were age ranges.

AGE RANGES, y'all. 

Based on my age, they would make an assessment about who I would best associate with; I would no doubt find myself with other 50-somethings who would likely be married empty nesters, or pre-retirement couples off rediscovering each other - or traveling the world together - as they slide into retirement.

While that is my age (and what I desperately wish I was doing), that is not my current life stage; that would be widowhood.

While I am very happy for all those 50-something couples who finally get to do all the things they put off because kids, those things are no longer options for me. I would have very little to add to this group, and would only gain reminders of what I thought I would have, what I had spent most of my adult life looking forward to. 

So would I connect with a group of 50-somethings? On the surface, maybe. Most of us probably have grown kids and a few grands, and are thinking about where we’d like to spend our retirement. But I don’t think it would go much beyond that.

See, I think I make some wives uncomfortable. I am a constant reminder to them of the unimaginable possibility of their probable future. (Eighty percent of women outlive will their husbands https://family.jrank.org/pages/1753/Widowhood-Demography-Widowed.html.) Plus, there is no readily available context in which to relate to one another - oh, say, like marriage.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

This got me thinking about all the other age brackets offered as options in this dropdown box. 

Where would they place a 51 year old student - with 40s-50s, or the 18+ group of students? 

Or a 38 year old single career woman - with the 30s who are most likely married and have kids, or the 20s who-just-haven't-found-the-right-one-yet group?

Or a 33 year old childless couple- with the 30s, where they will constantly be reminded of what they don’t have?

Or a 20 year old unwed mother - with the 20s co-eds and newly marrieds?

Or the 43 year old widow - with the 60+ crowd?

What irritates me most about this is the assumption that a certain life stage occurs at a given age, making life stage synonymous with chronological age. That may not be at all how they operate, but language is important, and this language demonstrates (at least to me) a cultural view connecting life and aging in a very formulaic, prescriptive way.

Widowhood is a stage of life all its own; it is not limited to a particular age. Death is no respecter of age. 
 
We are so much more than the sum of our years. This is a lesson to me to take time to see the whole person. Not just their age, but their religion, orientation, color - whatever makes them ... them.

Life’s too short, y’all. Don’t miss who’s right in front of you because they're not on your timetable.