Gandle, do you find that more and more people seem to have a look on their faces that says, "Poor old person, I guess I'll have to make allowances for him/her."

I hate that!!!

One nice thing....I can say outragerous things to the handsome young guys, they know it's a joke, I know it's a joke and it's fun. I wouldn't have dared said things like that forty years ago!.

The major thing I find troubling about reaching age milestones are other people's preconceptions about age. IOW, like a prematurely mature child, you get limiting factors imposed upon you for no other reason than what somebody else perceives is your place in society. I have no problem whatsover turning sixty. SIXTY, SIXTY, SIXTY. I can say it without cringing. I can still climb trees, lift bales of hay and peat moss and wield a shovel and when I hire in seasonal help, usually do the heavy stuff and have to build up fires underneath them to keep them from whining about how hard the work is. But, if I told them I was sixty, they'd be wondering if I had my reservation ready for Shady Pines. It would be like telling someone you were a leper, or a KKK member. IOW, it taints how you are treated because of somebody else's paradigms.

In twenty years, if I live that long, I may need support to lean on. But, it is similar to treating a thirty year old as a child, because twenty years ago, they were only ten.

If somebody offers me something out of deference to my age, whether I choose to accept it or not, I thank them for their consideration, just as I did throughout my life to men who would do so because I was a woman. I respect people who try to put other people first, whether they are spot on the money or not.

There are certain things about age I am beginning to appreciate. It's helped me sort the wheat from the chaff of life and appreciate what is most important to me. It's helped me to know that there are usually alternatives to messy situations and if there isn't.........one can survive them and still be at least not miserable. I think Art Linkletter said old age isn't for sissies and believe me, it's true.

If one is still in good health, still enjoys life and
still takes an active part in activities, most people will applaud the older folks.

However if one loses vital senses such as hearing, vision,
and some memory to a certain degree, people tend to feel uncomfortable around them.

Those are the ones I feel sadness for and the ones I feel drawn to.
The one single thing that older folks want to do is retain
some sort of independence. It's vital to let them have it
no matter the degree of the independence.

Gandle as active as you are and as involved as you continue to be, age will continue to be just a number for you.
How will you celebrate your birthday this year?

When I turned seventy earlier this year, an acquintance who is
eighty five sighed wistfully and said "oh to be seventy again".

Suzy, the only birthday I've ever had a problem with was sixty - it really gave me pause. I got over it:)

I'm 71 and find it easier to do just those things I want to do. For instance, I hate big crowds and lots of noise/confusion so I refuse to attend a 3 year old grandkid's birthday party with about 6 other kids and their parents....much rather celebrate with her on her next visit here. Similarly, I avoid big noisy restaurants and haven't been to a mall in years. I enjoy a group of up to 10 for family get-togethers...any larger and I beg off.

I can't do the hard physical work Suzy does but then I never could! LOL I've downsized house and limited garden to about 100 large containers. I do have household help but that's always been the case...just more often and more necessary now. DH and I no longer drive because of medications in his case, bad eyesight in mine, so she chauffeurs or does shopping errands (I rarely even go to grocery now...a job I always disliked).

I feel more mellow now...and try hard to stay balanced. I'm more likely to just turn off news for a few days or at least intersperse with some research on the web into 18th century hairstyles for comic relief after a session with C-Span or lurking at Hot Topics...LOL

As to how I'm perceived by others, I don't mind at all telling someone in person or on phone to slow down...explain again or send it in writing and I'll consider the options...LOL Worked with my opthamologist and DH has begun to insist on better communication with his doctors too. May take us longer but we're still capable of making our own decisions. I think at a certain point professionals and others (including our son...LOL) begin to discount that ability unless you get feisty if necessary.

So here's to geting older...consider the alternative! josh

What I find most interesting are the baggers at the grocery store. I bring my own canvas bags and invariably they asked "do you want ALL that in those bags?" "yes, I do" I'll say and they wonder whether I am capable of toting these heavy bags to the car and from the car into my house. Most of the time I just say that it's ok, but when a forty-something says the bag is far too hevay for her, I must advise her that I am used to emptying 50 lb. feed-bags into their containers and other such tasks, so don't worry already!
I will take the old folks discount, I call it the "Geezer" discount. I guess I am really, really old, I don't get carded for my wine purchases, but now I don't get carded for the Geezer discount any more, either.
What I am serious about is to continually simplifying my life, to abandon routines and stuff that no longer serves me, to make room for new stuff and new experiences.
As long as my health is excellent I don't worry about "what if..." and just keep going keeping going, I like my life as it is, and that's the important thing, isn't it? At any age.

No, I don't like being old but there seems to be no escape so I am learning to live with it. I just had my quarterly physical and it says I am in good shape----for my age. If only I had not smoked. Steve in Baltimore County

I don't talk about it and never tell my "age" it's a frame of mind anyway. I do like getting the senior discounts and compliment the clerks when they ask if I am a senior. Besides someone "old" is always 15 years older than me, like Gandle said. I'm just twenty years older than my kids and ask them sometimes how they like a mother who is the same age as they haha.

I'm laughing now. I have a set of canvas bags I take to the store. The neatest bag I have though is made of string and can roll up to nothing in a purse but hold half a bushel of apples.

Suzy, I had one of those, but it gave out. They are the bags of my childhood, the net ones which hold enormous amounts of stuff. You did not leave home without one.

The birthday I found mst difficult was when I turned fifty.That was realy hard.Can't imagine another one being of that magnitude. In January I will go on Medicare.For weeks I've received information from every insurance company in this country,Turning sixty-five is a bit sobering but nothing like fifty.

My BF went to pieces the day before she turned 55. Seems she was out shopping and saw an old lady, white hair, wrinkly face, drooping chinline (and elsewhere). Thought to herself, "I hope I look better than that when I get to her age," and then she realized it was herself she was seeing, in a mirror.

She's over 80 now, and says she should have understood that it isn't the wrinkles or changed physique that makes one older: Time does that, and meanwhile we should be grateful for every moment of every day because for every misery there is an equal joy, and happiness makes you feel better than gloom. And at our age, anything that helps is feel better is to be appreciated.

The ageist thing gets me is the language and it connotations. What the heck is a little old lady? Someone older than the speaker with osteoporosis?

I had to go into town to straighten out a mess on a billing statement recently. My DH asked me if I were going to use my "pitiful little old lady act?"

Naw, sez I, I'm going to use my "retired professional woman and still-smarter-that-you act."

You gotta know your audience to get the best of both worlds.

I do worry about some of my friends that have passed one of the big milestones. They are showing a definite decline in awareness of the world outside of their little circle. Is it because they are really slowing down and failing, or is it because they have never been the type to try new things. The world changes, but they haven't.

I'm sometimes surprised when I think of my age. I really don't feel like the carry-out guys in the grocery store should look surprised when I say I can handle carrying out the groceries myself.

I have found age has freed me up. I can talk of quitting work without people saying I shouldn't. I can wear what I want to without people saying I shouldn't. I still can't say whatever I want, but then I know I shouldn't!

Like Agnes, I'm still smarter than the average bear, even though I can't think of the word I want more and more frequently. Thank goodness, my family is used to it and can usually find the missing word. My MIL is turning 88 this week and she just trounced me, my daughter and SIL at Chinese Checkers last night, even though she could barely see the board -- I'm using her as my role model for graceful aging.

Love those string bags! Friend brought me some from trip to France. Also brought me photo of an older "lady of the evening" all gussied up in heavy makeup, beads and rings serenely smoking cigarette in long holder at a tiny cafe table....I've got it in little frame on my dressing table to remind me to not overdo it but to keep up the attempt! The French photographer was famous for his photo of these ladies. I thought of googling to find his name but afraid of what I'd find...didn't know quite how to word the query. Anyone know the photographer? josh

Brassai (forget his first name) was famous for such pictures.

It thoroughly pi$$ed me off when I realized I really
shouldn't get on the roof any more to clean the gutter s and blow the leaves off.
I still can, mind you, my children warned me off with a
reminder if I broke something, I would have to have someone
take care of me. (yeah right)I can't this year due to a hip problem, it's painful to
climb a ladder.

The thing that bothers me is seeing my soon to be 81 year
old husband who has failing eyesight and short term memory
loss trying to read books and struggling to remember things
he has known all his life. He never complains, ever, just
tries to joke about it.
He said to me yesterday that he isn't going to be making
a coconut pie for thanksgiving dinner this year. He did
for christmas last year but he had a hard time and it was stressful.
Things like that bother me, probably as much as it does him.

Being the caregiver, it also is a scary thought to realize
that if I can't take care of us, we'll end up in a nursing
home. (probably the biggest fear of all older people.

I'm he!! bent on outrunning old age, it'll have to take me
kicking and screaming in protest. I'll fight it til death.

Thanks, Neil. Brassai was a pseudonym for his Hungarian name...here's my lady...josh

Here is a link that might be useful: 'Bijou'

Jo, I love his pictures. I've got a whole book of them. unfortunately his Paris is no more. But back to aging, it really doesn't bother me until my back starts screaming way too soon when I'm gardening.

What I find interesting is looking at old pictures & finding how much older people looked in the 19640's & 1950's. Nowadays, I have a hard time figuring out just how old anyone is unless they flat out tell me.

Andie, I think it is partly the way folks dress. Back then there was "appropriate" clothing, makeup, hairstyles for different ages and nowadays a person of 50-60 dresses just like a 15 year old. Jeans and tees and athletic shoes whether man or woman.

Do you remember years ago when going to a company picnic how strange it seemed to see folks in casual rather than business attire? Nowadays with relaxed dress codes and "casual Fridays" there's not that much contrast.

I quit working in 1966 to be a SAHM for 16 years. What a change! Before 1966 no pants or boots or flat shoes and no long flowing locks (and for the men you seldom saw facial hair) if you wanted to dress professionally.
In 1982 everything was much more casual. Granted, I went into advertising where there is more latitude but still, a definite difference. josh

In 1958, at age 85, Irma Rosenthal Frankenstein wrote a poem. She wrote many poems, but this is one I read and re-read often. For me, it sums up a certain attitude toward ageing I hope I can incorporate into my own attitude/philosophy as I get older.
White Hair

I do not like my white hair

Some people do

I wish it would have stayed bluish-black

Or even salt and pepper like

Which says you are not young

Nor yet, are you old

IÂve longed all my life to be beautiful

Longed for it more than to be good

And now my hair is white

With a face that goes with it

White hair makes others good

And gives them beautiful manners

ItÂs not a crown

ItÂs more like a badge

Young things of whom I am jealous

Step aside and let me enter the elevator first

They halt the revolving doors for me

To pass through

Sometimes a gentleman tips his hat to me

And with grace offers me his seat

In the bus

And sometimes a different gentleman wants

To help me across the street

I hate it

Old people want to be independent

To navigate under their own power

As long as they can

Still, I remember, when white hair,

Called out tenderness in me

And I always helped old people

So I always say three thank youÂs

One I say out loud so they surely hear,

And try a smile

One more I say with an edge of sarcasm,

Thank you for reminding me that I am old,

I forget it so often

And the third thank you I say to God

Thanking him that courtesy has not died out in our hurried and

distracted world.

IÂll wear my white hair proudly

With my head erect

If it calls out tenderness in my fellow man.