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Getting older. It beats the alternative. Doesn't bother me a bit. Bring the wrinkles and the aches and pains. I'm still enjoying life. I just have a few more Ibuprofen on hand.
Stick around long enough to go to a few FUNERALS for your friends and acquaintances who died too young....( all...cancers). you will be grateful for having the blessing of aging. I turned 60 this past summer..I can Name 5-6 friends who never saw 60 except one. Then she died a few months later.
I don't think she was being mean at all. Not even close. But just sharing her own personal experience, which by the way sounded just like mine, after years of expecting it to be something else. It varies.
It was the same for me- some hot flashes, but that's it. No big deal.
Society idolized youth and shames "old" people. I was reading somewhere that in the adult entertainment industry, women in their mid 30s are cast as "milfs" and "cougars". In Hollywood, women in their 40s play mothers to adult children. What does that tell you about society's expectations?
Just love the person who looks back at you in the mirror, regardless of how many gray hairs or wrinkles she has. And for pete's sake don't even consider plastic surgery! These Hollywood people who do it look atrocious. The Kardashian clan is going to look terrible in a few years.
In society we are only valued for being beautiful/attractive to men.
Not true. I'm pushing 70, and am twice the woman I used to be (at least on the scales!) and I'm having a wonderful life with friends and family that support me , and I love being with them.
That was not true when I was young and svelte. Instead, I had a bunch of strangers trying to hit on me, and I had to walk around with a psychic brick wall around me.
Now, I am able to relax and be happy around men, laugh out loud, be as bawdy or formal as I want to be, and I don't have to worry about ulterior motives.
If the only thing you are trying to do when you're young is to be an ornament, then, yeah, when you get old, you are pretty useless. If you've spent a lifetime learning to be useful and doing intersting things and meeting interesting people, and you've focused on keeping yourself and the people around you healthy and happy, there is no reason life shouldn't get better as you age.
I am raising a son and a daughter. I see that my son is not preoccupied with his own looks. There are no messages in this society on looks, wrinkles, makeup, smooth legs for men.... As a consequence, he is blissfully happy with himself.
I do notice all the messages about women around me and my daughter. It bothers me at the existential and visceral level. I counter it the best way I can - by giving my daughter my own example. No makeup, no frills in clothing, our shopping is done stealthily online. More interest to ideas, friendships, events around us.
I look in detached amazement at how women lose vast amounts of money on snake oil salesmen, fads in "meso, hyulablahblah..., lipocavitation,..." come and go.
How we need to change this industry/attitude of women objectification, so the girls would grow up blissfully happy, just like the boys.
Yeah...one of the reasons I love British films and television so much (aside from the obvious superiority of talent and production values) is because they still revere their 60+ female actors who are given leading and important roles - WRINKLES, SAGGING SKIN AND ALL! They are still cast as love interests as well. IMAGINE THAT!!!!!
Looks are certainly an issue, but what I don't hear anyone discussing is loss of physical ability. Maybe I'm the only one this bothers. Talk about a loss of quality of life, when you can no longer do the activities you loved, and that identified you.
OA runs in my family, and after 3 joint replacements, I am very restricted in what I can do. All my former hobbies are gone.
I am NOT adjusting well to that. At all. 62 seems too early for this kind of thing; after a lifetime of physical jobs and activities....
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