AAM Monday: An Advantage to Age

There is a new blog-ish column in the Washington Post's Style section written by a mid 40s, newly divorced woman.  I may be slightly off with those two details but I'm close. One of her recent columns was about fighting aging. Oh baby, how many of us have been there and probably done some stupid things as she did such in an attempt to ward off aging.  She tried to beat her tween son in running. She, however, was running in a coat with her glasses on her head (I forget if foolish footware was include too) and slipped, fell, and damaged her rotator cuff.  I have known plenty of people who have entered into that mid-middle aged time who have done some damage to that area and when it gets serious, it ain't fun.

Whatever the doctor told our columnist to do didn't seem to agree with her. Oh how I smiled at that. btdt. When I first had a doctor tell me my cholesterol was high at around 47, I just ignored her and continued to eat what I wanted when I wanted.  Later when I was a bit older and wiser, Lipitor entered my life. Had I headed the advice I got in my late 40s that might have been different.  Many things have been like that. Sound familiar to you???

However, the columnist went on to say she found a 60yr old professional in the field of aging who blew off the doctor's advice. She too was proud to say she had ignored her doctor's advice about limiting her lifting of weights due to osteoporosis. She liked how her arms looked when she lifted weights!!!  But then she went on to say she had two friends who were 70 (my age!) and one acted 40 and the other acted 90.  Quite frankly, why would one want to act anything other than one's own age?? Does it sound like a great thing if a 30 year old acted like a 10 year old? Hopefully, by the time most of us reach 50 or 60 we are not trying to recapture an age that has passed. Being as healthy as one can, having interest in life, and relishing just being alive are qualities for ANY age.

What did Gloria Steinem say? "When a reporter told her, "You don't look 40," Steinem shot back: "This is what 40 looks like." And she said it at 50, and 60, and now 70. Each day above ground is a blessing. Enjoy it for what it is and not wish it were yesterday or ten years ago. We were silly enough to want to be older so much of our youth...old enough to drive, to drink, to fall in love, to graduate from whatever.  Live in the now - it's all we've really go. And so, when you turn 62 in the US of A, you have another great bargain to enjoy.

click to get to Greyhound

Greyhound has a ...get this...$14.95 roundtrip from Baltimore to NYC. ROUNDTRIP!!! It's available on their website and there are other bargains like this in other parts of the country I'm told. I snapped it up right away and am off to the Big Apple tout suite. Just me. A short vacation where I can do what strikes my fancy and wander into any shop or museum or just take my time and be. This is the kind of thing a 70 yr old can do without feeling the need for another person and also without feeling guilty. 

Life is good-at any age.

Shifting Seasons

Yesterday, we never turned the a/c on downstairs. It's changing, slowly but surely and I couldn't be happier. I do love the food bounty of summer but otherwise, it's my least favorite season. These cool mornings are just terrific, and if I could just get myself out of bed in the dark, I'd be fine. But 6am is dark now, and I didn't wake up till 7am. That makes me feel as tho I have lost a good part of the day, which I have! Perhaps a bit more efficient use of my time today will balance it all.

friends' Maine driveway -Stonehenge north

I even noticed last night that when I went out after dinner, the light was more like I 'see' 8pm but it was 7pm. Strange how it happens so gradually but there is one day or one night that it becomes an Aha! moment. I often stop what I've been doing to go and read downstairs at 4pm. I have usually had the outside shade down in the kitchen by midday, but yesterday I saw Sebastian on the couch just basking in the sunlight...preparing for winter?...and so I left it up.

How the seasons of our life shift too. I was looking at some shots of our trip to Vienna in 2006, and despite the gray hair I had then, we both looked so much younger. Was it the cold? the delight we found in that trip? or is the aging process going as fast as it seems. Probably all of the above. But not to really complain I think, as I always say...A day above ground is a good day. Now if I could just deal with the pull of gravity. It isn't the wrinkles, it's that so much of us is heading south. But again, we're still above ground with lots of good things in our lives so let the seasons shift. Let me accept what is as it is and I'll be content.