So here I am in my sixties. Still, it doesn't seem that different, as a matter of fact I feel as good as I've felt in a long time. This due, at least partially, to having taken up running and cutting out as many wheat products as I can keep track of.
I do need to recover from my birthday just a touch. The fact that my bro-in-law's fiftieth followed right on its heels has made for a lot of extra eating this past week and I'm sure I'm up a couple of pounds. Good news is that Spring is almost here along with a whole bunch of added opportunities to get out there and be active.A lot of people were surprised when I told them how close I was to being sixty. Apparently I don't look like I'm that old, which is fine by me. I suppose it's also likely I don't act that old, which is also fine with me. Myself, I'm not really sure how people in their sixties are supposed to look and act anyway. As a teenager, I always thought of people in their sixties as sedentary and senile and ready for retirement. Anyone in their seventies or eighties was essentially worm-fodder, on hold.
What it boiled down to was that I figured things stopped when you got old. Sports stopped, sex stopped, creativity stopped. A person's viability stopped.Well....not so!
For me, the only thing that's changed is I'm a little balder, a little greyer, the hearing's gone a touch and I occasionally wrestle with my memory. The balding and greying's been going on for years now so they don't seem all that new. The hearing's kind of new but I expect it can be fixed and the memory can also be worked on.
I am surrounded by many more young people than old and this, I think, has slowed the aging process a touch. My peers are young, or at least younger than I am, and I feel a part of their group. Apart from the occasional reminder that I am as old as their parents, I tend to forget I am as old as their parents.
I have had a couple of philosophical talks with people about the aging process and turning sixty. During these a couple of the old standbys have been spouted. One of them is you are only as old as you feel. Another one is sixty is the new forty. Personally, the new standby for me is feel what you feel and don't try to attach an age to it! Do what you feel like doing and if that thing you feel like doing is something you did when you were a teenager then that's fine. If that thing you feel like doing is something a grandparent might do, then that's fine too. In other words, don't feel like you need to act your age.I don't think I'm saying anything that's new here, either. The aging process has changed so much and there are so many of us (I am one of the Baby Boomers) reaching these milestone ages at the same time that old adages are for the most part out the window. I play in a ball hockey league full of twenty and thirty-year olds and the last thing I want from them is their respect because I'm an elder. I want to be jostled and I want to be checked and I want to be covered when I'm open because, if I'm not covered, I'm going to score on a goalie who's thirty-five years younger than me. That's just me being me and not a sixty-year-old, I guess.
I am a product of good genes. My Dad was kind of an ageless wonder and I hope to emulate him. Doralyn, my wife, is fifteen years younger than me but, frankly, looks as though she could be thirty years younger. This, as well, helps keep me young. It is also incentive to be healthier and doing what I can do to be a little more vital. There are days when being more vital is a bit of a struggle but, hell, I'm sixty, dontcha know?!
With all of this, I am now considering life at seventy and beyond. Honestly, I don't feel any different at sixty than I did at fifty. I can't think of a truly good reason why I might feel any different a decade from now. Frankly, I'm more worried about my mind than my body. What might be developed in the coming decade, however, to improve both our mental and physical states is up for conjecture but I'm betting it will be life-altering. My aim is to simply be there to find out!
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