I'm 60. That's not old. Of course, "Old" is a moving target, something like 5 years older than I am.
I told a teenage friend a story, finishing with, "And I'm not old." She looked at me as if to say, "And what planet are YOU from?"
I work Private Duty, taking care of medically fragile children in their own homes. I had one mother tell her 6-year old (in front of me), "Be careful, don't trip the nurse. She might fall and break her hip!"
And then there was the mom who told me that she was glad that I was spry!
Spry: (definition) Markedly brisk and active, especially at an advanced age!
OK, I have gray hair. I earned it. And I'm not about to bother coloring it. But I don't act old. I play with the kids on the floor, and I pop right back up.
Yes, you totally make sense! I would love to have - and keep - a 35 year old body. Everything worked well back then. And without all those little aches and pains! My mind doesn't feel old except when it comes to memorizing. I used to memorize so easily, and now I have to work at it.
I hope to be able to work at least until I'm 70. I'm having fun. However, I may see things differently when I'm 70.
Specializes in Palliative, Onc, Med-Surg, Home Hospice.
If my 74yo mother isn't old (she recently went sky diving and is planning to go skydiving with her grandson when he turns 18), then now way are you old! Old is 90.
(So says the woman who tells everyone she is 21, and has been for man MANY years)
We have a nurse that started that is in her 70's and some of the staff say things in reference to her, 'You look like my favorite grandma" as if she wants to hear it. I think it is just inappropriate. Then someone says, 'I know you're old' as in she may have not have heard someone say something to her. It is just inappropriate. But people don't learn. No manners.
What boggles my brain is that my brain/mind does not think, feel, old.
I was listening to Sirius radio, Doctor Radio, about TBI. The host, (a doctor), a guest MD who specialized in TBI, and the guest, a snowboarder qualifying to be on the Olympic team who had had a severe TBI. The snowboarder said (I'm badly paraphrasing) when he had bone or muscle injuries his body (brain) knew it, felt it, he knew to take it easy, rest, let the injury heal. But after his TBI his brain could not, did not, acknowledge it had been injured. He thought he could compete again, (he couldn't).
I feel the same about my body getting old. My brain doesn't seem to acknowledge that the body (and mind) is old? I have to consciously acknowledge that I can't physically perform as well as I did 20 years ago, from driving, a car to jumping on my bike, to climbing to the top of a ladder to prune my tree!
I don't know if that makes any sense?
I've always thought the worst thing about aging is I see myself as I was when I was in my 20s.
Then I look in the mirror and an old woman looks back.
The second worst thing is seeing dismissal in the eyes a 20 something colleague, just because of age.
My mother is in her fifties, and I swear she is in better shape than most twenty-somethings (including me!). She usually jogs five or some miles a day and some people have asked if we are sisters.
She has no plans of slowing down as she works full-time running an ever-expanding organization. Some people always seemed shock to find out that she has an almost twenty-five year old daughter.
My 90 year old grandmother is still living in her home. I bet if you (OP) told her that your sixty-year old self was old, she would laugh and call you a youngin'.
When I taught kindergarten, one of the kids heard I was 21 and about had a stroke because of how "OLD!!!!!!" I was... many years later, I'm glad I still have all of my teeth ;-)
At 40 my kids think I'm ancient as do the 20 something I work with but the knowledge and experience I have acquired I wouldn't trade it for nothing. I freaked out the first time my teenage daughter's friends called me ma'am now I demand they refer me as ma'am.
Kitiger, RN
1,834 Posts
Yes, you totally make sense! I would love to have - and keep - a 35 year old body. Everything worked well back then. And without all those little aches and pains! My mind doesn't feel old except when it comes to memorizing. I used to memorize so easily, and now I have to work at it.
I hope to be able to work at least until I'm 70. I'm having fun. However, I may see things differently when I'm 70.