The local senior center recently sponsored a 1960’s themed dance for people 60+. I am definitely over 60 so I went. Just getting ready for the dance was a walk down memory lane, or maybe more like a painful stroll through the past. THE 1960’s LOOK I opted to go with the late 60’s hippy look for the dance, even though my go-to outfit in the 1960’s was a wool skirt and sweater. The skirts were knee length while I was in high school but they got shorter and shorter after I graduated in 1966. There was no way I was going to put a mini skirt on my 75 year old body, so I settled for jeans and an ethnic tunic top with a headband of fake flowers for the required “flowers in my hair” effect. The irony is that I never really embraced the hippy look during the actual days of peace and love. THE 1970’s LOOK Although the rest of the world had moved on into the Age of Aquarius by the late 60’s, I didn’t really encounter the full on hippy culture until I moved to California, after getting married. I was still wearing mini skirts and strappy shoes with chunky heels, and then BOOM, I found myself surrounded by bedraggled people with really long hair. My former husband, who I met while he was serving in the air force in my home town, went from a clean cut guy in polo shirts to a hippy - in about a week. It took me a little longer to ease into the scene. He was a native Californian back in his home territory. I was a Minnesota transplant trying to fit in, and the hippy life style was never a good fit for me. As it turns out, neither was my marriage. LIFE IS A DANCE I loved going to dances when I was in high school. We didn’t have them very often and we dressed up for them when we did. I wore the same pair of low heeled pumps for every dance, changing the color to match my dress (that I sewed myself), by painting them with this stuff made especially to use on shoes. My high school boyfriend was a great dancer and, because I had the same boyfriend for the entire three years, I didn’t experience a lot of the angst involved in hoping to be asked to dance. Angst, however, was just waiting in the wings for future demoralization. Older but not wiser after my divorce, I experimented with going to dances as an adult. I had minimal skills at mingling and spent a lot of time sitting on the sidelines waiting for who knows what. I have a wonderful friend who shared some of these learning experiences. We went to singles dances together in the 1990’s. The best parts were the anticipation, deciding what to wear and comparing strategies for surviving a dance at 40+, and the after dance debriefing where we shared our disappointments and occasional successes. I spent a lot of time in the bathroom meditating. AFTER 60 AND BEYOND Somewhere between 40 and 60 I retired from dances as well as my job as a teacher. I found other ways to experience disappointment and success. Retirement has opened my world to new ways of thinking about what I want to do with my life. Yes, I enjoy puttering around my cozy home and interacting with my cat, but I am less worried and fearful than I was when my friend and I explored the painful rituals of middle aged singles dances. I am more likely to do risky things. When I saw the notice about a 1960’s dance for people who had actually lived through the 60’s, I decided to give it a try. What did I learn at this most recent trip back into the world of dances? I discovered that my dance skills have deteriorated quite a bit and the best I can do is shuffle awkwardly in time to the music. I enjoyed mingling more than I did at the dances in the 1990’s. It was fun to be with a bunch of oldsters like me having a good time. Many of them could actually still dance up a storm. But the volume of the band made actual conversations very limited, especially since my hearing has deteriorated along with my dance moves. Just like life, the dance had its ups and downs. I found that, despite the fact that everyone at the dance was a senior, there is a noticeable difference between being 60 and being 75. A lot can happen physically in 15 years and all of it has happened to me; but I am not interested in being 60 again. Despite the fact that I can’t dance the way I did in the past, I finally feel older and wiser. It was good to look back but I want to keep going forward, one day at a time.
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Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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