I've already blown it--I eat fast!
I've never lied about my age; I just "honestly" don't bring up the subject.

Why is it that now I'm of a certain age,it seems that everywhere I go and everything I read seems to be...enjoy your older years,these are the best years of your life,now you really know what things are all about,maturity is terrific,celebrate your wrinkles...blah blah blah. It's all a bunch of BS as far as I'm concerned. We're all getting OLD..it's not fun,I don't look and feel better than I ever have and I spit on my wrinkles! Once you accept all that,then you just get on with it and have as much fun as you can. Now I'm going to go gobble up something really good and sweet and maybe do an extra 5 minutes on the treadmill. grumble,grumble grumble.

Ah Marda, my sentiments exactly. One thing that gets to me is when folks simply look at you and pigeon-hole you into their own assumptions. I cannot count the number of times I've been in an office of some kind and the young thing (and even the not-so-young-thing) taking my info simply assumes that I'm retired. I like to say, "No, I work full=time as a college professor" just to watch them backtrack and stumble all over themsleves as they try to readjust their assumptions. Works like a charm, but what about all the folks who really are retired or do other than paid work? They are assumed to be old fogeys, I guess, and that doesn't get much respect in our culture.

Guess I'll go play with the kittens. They have no pre-conceived notions about old fogeys.

And those pounds are a whole lot harder to come off once you hit "a certain age."

I am LOL and understand everything you all have said. Yes, you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and gasp. I held together exceptionally well in my 40s and think that was perhaps the best decade of my life with the best of both worlds. I hung in there through my early fifties, but now that I am creeping toward the next milestone strange manifestations are visiting me. Crepe paper skin, for one on my arms when I turn them the wrong way. Bones sticking out at odd angles on my once broad and muscular back. It sucks eggs.

Like Marda says, you just get over it and get on with it, and thank the Good Lord it's mostly just appearances. I have learned to smile more and flash people wide grins. I honestly think that's the best cosmetic older people can use.

I also moan under the preconceptions and stereotyping younger people have of older people that Pidge is speaking to. Cashiers asking if I want a bag boy to help me out with groceries? roflmao. I still hoist eighty pound bags of soil for hours on end when I'm in my planting season. Tell you what, however, is that I suspect and am acting on the assumption that the older one gets, the more one must insist of working their bodies. It's such a temptation to do things the "easy way out" a little bit more every day because it isn't as comfortable as it was when you were 20/30/40. I make my body work for me until it hurts and then a little bit more. After a lifetime of assuming immortality, one does pay a bit more attention to their nutrition, their sleep or lack of it, and climbing twelve foot ladders.

Calliope, you mentioned 40 as being a good age for you. I think that was also true for my wife. She was at her most attractive and seductive during her 40's. Somehow she escaped the stretch marks etc. associated with chilbirth. Steve in Baltimore

I liked the 40s too. And even the early 50s. I think a woman rather enjoys, at least I did, that time of life when the males still made passes. If they were much younger than I was, it was even better!! Now, all I get is old creeky cheeky coots.

But alas and alack!! Mother Nature and Father Time got together and struck back. The joints ache, the skin....well, let's don't talk about the skin, boredom is just as irksome, clothes don't fit as well, no matter where I shop so I might as well go to Walmart and save money because I will look like a frump anyway.

The patronizing attitude is the hardest to take for me. I really resent being grouped with the elderly that are unable to fend for themselves.

Golden Years???? That's the biggest bunch of Cr@p ever dumped out of a barnyard.

And FYI, I came across an ad for a male enhancement device that consisted of some sort of pumping vacuum thing....AND MEDICARE WOULD PAY FOR IT!!!

never minded a decade passing until I hit sixty and that really gave me pause. I did not enjoy my sixties a whole lot. I didn't take very good care of myself in that decade and I had a lot of emotional upheaval. BUT... I turned seventy ten days ago and I think this is going to be a great decade ~ assuming of course that I make it through to the end of it:) It already feels much better than the last one.

I'm with Suzy - taking care of the old bod becomes more and more important as we get older. For the last few months I've been going to the gym 3/4 times a week now and do about 40/50 minutes on the treadmill and I also do weight resistance work. I'm back at Weight Watchers and have lost 15 lbs since the end of May and feel committed to getting into shape. I need to lose the equivalent of theamount of kibble my two dogs eat in a month. They eat a lot:)

The lines and wrinkles? Well, I'm not too crazy about that part, particularly now I've had a catarract removed and can see them clearly! I wouldn't mind taking a tuck or two as a mattter of fact. The inside of the arms? Sooo right, Suzy...I guess because we can see them all the time.

I'm blessed to have no aches or pains - thanks to the right genes, both of my parents were arthritis free.

I think this birthday has brought about an accepting of how old I am chronologically, how blessed I am to be so well and how I am determined not to follow my older brother ~ he has had three strokes in the last four years.

Finally, I find not looking in the mirror more than morning and night is a huge help, because in my mind's eye I am taller, thinner and younger than that reflection suggests.

Sheila..if you are 70,you have to be one of the youngest,if not the youngest looking 70 year old I've ever seen. You are doing something right,that's for sure.

Sheila, the week I turned 70 I was having a series of medical tests and had to repeat my birth date practically endlessly. I think it was a plot.

LOL Pidge! I was shocked just to receive a birthday card that actually had "70" written on it:)

Marda, you're very kind. Actually, I have always been blessed (or cursed) with looking younger than I am. My mother did too so maybe it's a genetic thing.