Ranting and Raving, in all Due Respect

Respectively Submitted By Connie Wolf March 24, 2009 What I respect in you, what is truly beautiful to me is the endless human variety, the unique spark of individuality that I have encountered in people over the span of my brief sixty five years of life. I like characters, the kind of people that defy cubbyholes and stereotypes. This is how I view you and how I wish to be viewed. I have no patience with those who presume to know me because I am a certain age, gender, race, size or nationality. Do not think you can label me a conservative or a liberal and tuck me away in a tidy corner. Don’t ever typecast me as a senior citizen, someone that represents passionless age, set aside to peek through kitchen curtains at passing neighbors. I admit, I do own a rocking chair but I do not pass my time in it, and I am not addicted to network news and the prognostications of the weather channel. I am not a stereotype; I am an individual as much now as I was 30 or 40 years ago. More of an individual actually, I’ve had more time, more experiences to mold and change me and I’m not through yet, I’m still changing, still growing. Don’t ever count me out. In fact, I have invented a word that encompasses this whole concept. The word is “Elderviginality”. The “Elder” portion refers to those qualities that we card carrying seniors have in common and the “viginality” part is how we differ. In the popular cultural belief of Western civilization it is assumed that if you have seen one old lady, you’ve seen us all. I beg to differ. Some of us have grown more peaceful and serene with the passing of time, growing in wisdom and acceptance. Others grew in bitterness and regret. We all have the tendency, as the years pass, to repeat ourselves but some repeat jokes and funny stories, others a list of woes. What I respect in you is that unique spark that makes you, you. That quirky sense of humor, your unique passion for whatever you are passionate about. I may not agree with you, I probably won’t join you in your zeal, but I certainly admire the fact that you care enough to be that ardent about it. I respect your passion until you cross the line, the line that insists that I must agree with you, that I must join you, that you hold the only spark of ultimate truth. Please, don’t even go there! You have neither the right nor the ability to dictate my beliefs, mold my desires or chose my obsessions. May we respectively agree to disagree, even in this contentious political climate? Even in this volatile world economy? Even in this age of world-wide violence and upheaval? Is that possible, can we accomplish that?