at 77, do i dare dress … dorky?

       I’m getting dressed to go to the gym, and I really don’t feel like changing out of my comfortable capri leggings. But when I bend my knees, you can catch a glimpse of the top edge of my compression knee-high stockings, which I have to wear all the time.

      Ugh. Of course I change my clothes.

      To be clear, I’m hardly a gym rat (mostly I do Zumba classes), and it’s not as if I typically wear cute spandex activewear. I could surely get away with any comfortable clothing for my workouts. But obvious compression knee-highs (sheer ones, not the cute colorful winter ones)? No way.

      My husband would probably say I look “dorky.” Which is the equivalent at this age of “like an old lady.” It probably would be the same reaction if I wore baggy jeans.

      Don’t get me wrong—I don’t ever consciously try to look younger with, say, tight-fitting/revealing gym outfits or street clothes. I spend much of my time in jeans and T-shirts or sweatshirts, except when I have an appointment. For those, I typically wear a fairly nondescript outfit of pants and a top. Age appropriate, right?

      I’m all for aging gracefully. But “like an old lady” just doesn’t connote the look that comes to mind when I think of graceful aging. I still want to look fashionable. I don’t want to look dorky.

      Now, of course, we didn’t say “dorky” or “nerdy” back in junior high (not middle school, mind you). Not sure what we did call it. But even if it was indefinable, you knew it when you saw it, and nobody wanted to look it.

      So here I am—many, many decades later—and I’m still stressing about avoiding that epithet?! Part of me longs to not care, to have the freedom to wear what I want when I want. Haven’t I earned that privilege at the age of 77?

      Okay, so suppose I have earned it, but at what cost? My self-respect? Or just self-consciousness? When I’m at the gym, I continually look to see if the tops of my compression stockings are well hidden. When I think no one’s looking, I surreptitiously pull them up if they start to sag.

      I look around at the other older women. Wait, what? I said older women, not old ladies. Is it just semantics, then? To me, it feels like a world of difference. My mother never used to say “older women.” (Actually, she referred to her coworkers, all in their 40s and 50s, as “the girls” in the office, so that doesn’t help much.)

      I’m not looking at these women to judge them—maybe to compare. Mostly, I just wonder if they stress about all this like I do.

      Somehow, I doubt it. If I’m lucky enough to live into my 90s and still go to the gym, will I be asking my husband whether this outfit makes me look dorky?

      I do hope so.