My appearance is deceiving. I look smaller than I am, and younger. 

Looking smaller than I am means that salespeople argue with me about what size hat (XL), pants (US14), or shirt (large) I pick out. They think I have tiny feet (8) and that I’m very short (5’5”). My proportions are apparently slightly off, as if I’m standing at the wrong distance.

I also have thick hair that has been sprinkled with gray for twenty five years, but it’s still only mostly gray at the temples. I have a tattoo. I wear an N95 mask on the bus, so you can’t see the wrinkles, but even without it I have strong bones and no jowls. I was an athlete. I look as if I’m in my early sixties. But I’m 74.

I have bad knees, a bad hip, poor balance, and hearing aids. I swear. So I take advantage of the senior citizen seats, I get the bus driver to lower the bus for me, and I let young people wave me forward ahead of them.

On the bus, when I sit down in the senior citizen seats, I sometimes get side-eye from the kind of older woman who likes to enforce the rules. Today one of those people, after several glares at me and a huff of breath, got up and offered her seat to another, nearby, standing woman of about my age, who was clinging to a grab bar.

“No thank you, I would fall down,” said the standing woman politely, and the disapprover sat down again, not looking at me. The standing woman had white hair, which is appropriate for our age.

I did fall on the bus once, and hit a metal crossbar with my face. I was lucky I didn’t break my cheekbone, though I did have a bruise for a while. 

So when it’s my stop, I don’t pretend to be sprightly. I rise slowly, holding on to the strap or the bar, and I take little steps, holding on. I could stride, I could swing my arms, but no thank you, I would fall down. I’m one good fall from looking my age, so I might as well act as if I am my age.