Orang Tua

Headed home from a walk last night, I happened to pass the Pos Kambling. This is the office of what I guess you'd call the 'neighborhood association'. I've met these guys briefly in the past--just recently, in fact, when they came by the house selling tickets for a prize drawing (which, I suppose, is a way of gathering money for various neighborhood improvements). 

Well, as I passed the place, I heard one of the men say "There goes that bule." 

"Which bule?" his companion asked. 

"Orange tua," the first explained. The old one. 

There goes the old white man. 

Hah! I beg your pardon! Since when am I old?

That question was answered a bit later on by the mirror in my bedroom. Since quite a long time ago, the mirror said. 

Well I'll be damned, said I to myself. You are an old white man. 

Isn't it strange? I don't think of myself as old. I don't picture myself as old--despite my daily aches and pains and my inability to walk very far or even in a straight line any more, or to remember what happened yesterday or even two hours ago. Most of the people I socialize with day to day are quite young; and, in fact, older people seem to me … well, old. Not that they are unpleasant. Not at all. It's more like they seem imposing, or somehow unapproachable. I don't seem to fit in to their circles. The funny thing is that most of those whom I am referring to as 'old' are actually younger than I! 

I see older folks as having some kind of automatic authority or position that is above and beyond my own. More often, I feel more like a stupid kid just like any other stupid kid. More stupid yet, actually, for having allowed myself to get old!