I was asked this week if I was retired.

Ouch.

I’m 53 years old — will be 54 in early January — with a head full of gray hair. I like to think it’s the hair that makes me look older than I am. I’m sure it contributes, but probably isn’t all to blame.

I stopped coloring it about five years ago when I got tired of the monthly salon expense and, more importantly, sought authenticity.

I’m not sure it was a good decision. I’m now thinking authenticity is overrated.

My grocery store at the time was the Piggly Wiggly in Columbiana, Ala., and I dreaded shopping on Wednesday’s, which was senior day.

No matter how many times I told them I didn’t qualify for the senior discount, they asked me anyway — every time. Sometimes they didn’t ask, and just gave it to me.

Reading new Vicksburg Post lifestyle columnist David Creel’s contribution a couple of weeks ago about what his mother did to feel younger has me thinking I threw in the towel way too soon.

I’m years away — 14 years, actually — from 67, which is the age of retirement for my generation, or so the Social Security Administration says.

I work in a newsroom whose staff is mostly decades younger than I am, and I’m not sure if they are keeping me young, or making me older.

Conversations with Gen Next, or whatever we’re calling 20-somethings today, are incredibly interesting. They have different priorities than did my generation, and I think they may be the ones who are getting it right. I enjoy hearing their views on politics. Their work ethic is radically different than that of my generation, but maybe they value their time — and the importance of being fairly compensated — much more than mine did. Some of their thoughts are naïve, but no more than mine were when I was in my 20s.

I love keeping up with pop culture through them. Facebook probably helps with that, too. I love many of the same things they love, like the new Adele song, “Hello,” for instance. I’m concerned that I’m a little obsessed with it, that I enjoyed a little too much the video of Adele joining in with Jimmy Fallon and The Roots and their rendition of that song using children’s instruments.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the video. It delights me that much.

Then, I remember, I’m not their age. I’m old. I could be their mother. In fact, I’m older than their mothers. And the reality that life is finite comes crashing around me. I don’t have their options anymore. I don’t have the do-overs they still have.

Depressing.

One of the wisest women I ever wrote about was Eleanor Donohue Drew, who was a housewife turned local politician in Niles, Mich. When I sat down with her, as I always do, I started off by asking some basic biography questions, like her age. She wouldn’t answer that question. She said it was none of my business and made no difference to anything anyway.

“The cruelest thing in life,” she said, “is that your body ages, but your mind stays the same. My body may be 80. In my mind, I’m still the same young girl I was at 19.”

Maybe I have some fight left in me. Anybody know a good hair stylist? I think I need to color this gray.