What is Old? Am I there Yet? I Just Do Not Feel It! - Aging Issues Message Board

neflin · 12-30-2005, 12:46 PM

I thought when I was younger and bringing up the children and dealing with the stress of making a husband happy and keeping all things working smoothly were the toughest years. I was wrong. I am finding that these are really very confusing years. I do not even know how old is old and how young is young. I go to the beauty shop every five weeks so that they can work their wonders on me so that I am attractive (in a way) to my husband and the young women like to crowd around me and talk as they say I am young for my age and am fun to talk to. This even confuses me worse. They constantly ask me about growing older and my life with my husband as they are searching and want to know what their life will be at this age. I do not know what to tell them. What do you say? They do not know and want to know. I just tell them that it is no different with us than it is with their husbands. This is all part of the aging issues but when I leave the beauty parlor I do not feel good as I feel older as they have made me feel like I am some kind of an old person who is not supposed to enjoy life because she is older.

This is my hardest time. I am too old to be young and too young to be old. I am just having a terrible time of it. Society says that I am supposed to act old yet I feel so young and alive and am so far from aging that it is not funny. When I was younger I thought when I got to this age I would probably be near dead. I can remember my Grandmother died a year earlier than I am and even though I am a Grandmother I am more important a woman who loves life and her husband. I never thought in the deepest corner of my mind that I would have the feelings in life that I have now.
It is the most puzzling time of my life. I never knew this would have existed.

I wonder if there are other women or men out there my age who are having this terrible time at this point in life. I think often of the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. Not that I am one of those women in the movie that sits in a circle with a mirror to learn her vagina as I do not have that problem but just the women in general in the movie facing growing older. Now I am closer to 69 than 68 and in great moments feel 28 and others around 58. I am sure my husband does not know sometimes who will be walking into the room. When I mess up with directions sometimes it makes me furious. Only with myself. I do not want to slow down and fight every bit of it.

How do you other women or even men in this age group handle this? Do we all have these hang ups or am I just super sensitive at this age? Please believe me I am not afraid of dying or anything. Just as long as I die in his arms.

dutch-ny · 12-30-2005, 01:02 PM

I think at the age of 58,that I am old and most days I feel 30. I am male married 28 yrs., When wife comes in the room I feel like I am 30,when she leaves I become like 88.I look at women and they seem like my daughter ,they seem so young. My doctor when I was young said I would not live to the age of 18, Now i am 58!!!!!!!!! My aunt just made 97 in December 05, So what is old??

neflin · 12-30-2005, 09:14 PM

I agree, my worse problems comes with the younger, say around 46 like our daughter when they get thinking you are getting old. Sometime is gets depressing when people think because you are in your late 60's that you are old and I do not feel old. Guess will worry about it in my late 70's if I make it. Never thought I would get this old either. Guess it is all the Medicare stuff and bad knees from golfing that get to you. Or my favorite is at a bank cashing a check or somewhere that I have to show my ID and you hear "Oh, I did not know you were that old". Lord how I love that. Really makes my day. Sets me in depression until I realize I probably would have said the same thing a few years ago to someone. Oh well, so goes life.
Take care.

Kaycee41 · 12-31-2005, 06:03 AM

I work in a medical office with mostly 20-something women. The other day there was some confusion about which client had asked for a refill. I said "is it that man who just left", (he was in his 20's). The girls said "oh, no,....this guy was old....he was like 35". They were very embarrassed when they remembered that I'm in my mid 40's!

neflin · 12-31-2005, 03:46 PM

MrBojangle: you have just made my day. You two sound so much like my husband and myself. We just do everything together and I adore him. We have had our share of his double knee replacements, rotar cuff tear, gall bladder out, three hernia operations, appendix (all him) but with the doctor's help they keep gluing him back together. It is so funny how at this age you can look at your loved one and he looks just the same as the sailor I married 47 years ago. Love is deeper and more passionate even though our days are getting shorter.

I guess I just treasure life so much and deep down just may not be admitting that the fear of ever living without him would be too much to bare. All these things are just part of growing old but until recently I have never thought of it before. It has probably hit me since I discovered this Board less than two weeks ago. The words of all the people on this Board is so great and I loved the story of you and your wife. I will remember it well. Thank you. Happy New Year to you and yours.