"Don't Say 'Still'"

I just blurted it out.  It wasn't angry or belligerent; it was just an instinctive and immediate response delivered with certitude and confidence.  The setting: a representative of an insurance company testing my 75+ year-old cognitive skills prior to a driving test required for me to keep my driver's license.  That aspect of my story is for another day. Let me just say here that the required test had nothing to do with my perfect driving record. It was purely age-based. YIKES!

This personable woman was giving me the results of a simple cognitive test and explained that my score meant I could still --- and I interrupted her right there. "Don't say 'still'. When you use that word it implies that I surpass expectations for a certain capability expected for someone my chronological age."  The examiner responded very positively, saying she had never thought of that meaning in use of the word "still" and she clearly caught my meaning immediately. She went on to say that she was presenting a training for employees of an adult day care center that evening at a local site her employer insured. The topic was customer service and she would use this new knowledge with her class.

When I found a geriatrician here in the St. Louis area soon after my relocation here, she asked me three questions on my first visit:

1. Have you fallen within the last six months?  Good question. Persons over the age of 65 are at risk for serious consequence when a fall is sustained.

2. Do you live independently at home? Good question. It gives some general indication of the level of my physical/cognitive functions.

3.  Do you still drive?  OH NO! My geriatrician flunked on that question.  Still?  The implication is that someone of my chronological age may surely have lost the complex interplay of skills that driving requires.

Not to be repetitious, but we use the word "still" when we are describing something seen as beyond the time line society determines.  If you smile when you see this picture below, you get it. Bring it to your level of consciousness when dealing with what society has told all of us about aging and older adults.

For the most part, what we absorb from our culture about what aging is and what to expect as a result of the aging process is so false and so detrimental to each one of us.  It's way past time to start learning the real facts about aging and life in our later years!  In fact, the more you know the whole story about aging, the better aging looks!