Embracing Old Age

littlegran for a 91-year old you sure do have a contemporary way of writing and talking!

I've just joined Gransnet and read about your aches and pains with absolute recognition. I just try to console myself that it's a natural progression of life that things deteriorate as I age. I've had Guillan Barre syndrome for over two years (I'm 66) and it changed my way of life overnight. But, I can just about walk small distances and, wonder of wonders, I can drive my car, thereby enabling my independence - long may it last. Everything about me aches but I could be in a wheelchair, and I'm not. That's what keeps me going from day to day. Plus a wonderful family who don't live very near but I know they are all there for me should I need them. I live alone but have a partner - that's another story, why we don't live together....

littlegran - you may be our oldest member - congratulations! I am sure you will be around for many years yet.
Gracesmum - I am usually in bed (surfing and watching TV) by 8 pm. I don't think I could keep up with your schedule!
Aka - how do you know I wear them?

gracesmum - love you, only just seen this but my goodness did it make me laugh. I can so, so, relate to what you're saying. In particular the bit about illness, it absolutely does my head in! In fact I now make a conscious effort not to start conversations with 'how are you' because sadly so many will actually tell me, in graphic detail, and quite frankly all I am looking for it is a 'very well thank you.' I also get a surprise sometimes when I look in the mirror and see this grey haired older person looking back at me. Frankly, inside I still feel young - arthritis aside - but clearly the mirror doesn't agree. Like you, at times I find life dull and unfulfilling (I prefer Come Dine with Me and Bargain Hunt by the way). Getting older is so not fun, not for me anyway, I wish I could be more like some of you Gransnetters who are enjoying the here and now, maybe I should get some chickens (see Lamb and her sheep above) I've always fancied keeping chickens..........

Rant on gracesmum, you've made my day!

wow. at 91 i guess i am old and accept the usual aches and pains but am so much luckier than many of my younger old friends. i set myself goals. make sure i am still around for Xmas and hopefully for my youngest grandsons graduation next May.= but who knows when your time comes you gotta go.

lamb; please tell us more about your sheep . I saw a flock of Grey Faced Dartmoors many years ago and fell in love with them [I've got a print of some GFD lambs near me as I write]. I saw a programme about how they had created so many different types to live on all terrains and under all conditions. And one of my most vivid memories of a holiday in Greece a long time ago has been the pet sheep that lived at one of the tavernas [I hadn't realised they could be such characters].

Knickers Greatnan

"GM" it is a wonder you are still standing! Sounds like a really interesting life.

Oh dear! First of all, to berdie and all others who have MUCH more serious preoccupations than my (harmless, I thought) little rant on Monday. I thought it struck a chord with a few people, because it does no harm to be realistic unlike those wretched creams which claim to "sort" the 7 signs of ageing (you know myopia, incontinence, insomnia, rheumatism, amnesia and I forget the other one)
However.......I never expected it to spark a broadside about negativity among Gnetters - you need to get to know us better to realise that is far from the case.
So just in case my get-up-and-go is being called into question:
last night we went to London for a private view of DD's BF (and we hope future SIL)'s work - he is a sculptor - at a chichi City Bank (used to be Barings) - where they own some of his pieces and are promoting him: last week I went to the Laura Knight exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and then on to dinner and "Storm in a Flower Vase" at the New Arts Theatre; the week before we had had the little boys for 4 days while DD and SIL were in Italy , but later in the week I went to the Pompeii and Herculaneum exhibition at the BM; the week before that I went to the Redgrave/James Earl Jones "Much Ado About Nothing" at the Old Vic - oh and dinner. Next week we are at The Private Ear and the Public Eye at MK theatre, then up to Birmngham for a concert at Symphony Hall on Wednesday and on Friday we go to Kent for the weekend to stay with Sis-in law who is taking us to Glyndebourne as DH's birthday present.
Maybe it's not negativity I am suffering from - maybe it's exhaustion.

I used to moan about aches and pains in knees and shoulders etc, and then I got a little GS with Downs, and despite the fact that he will have surgery later this year to close a hole in his heart, he just smiles at life all the time. Puts age and aches and pains into perspective.

Yes, I have all the aforementioned aches and pains and am over weight. But my secret to happiness is to have a flock of sheep. I have had a successful season at the agricultural shows with my ram and ewes and also larking about with my colleagues. I follow the seasons, each one having a meaning to my work. Now is the beginning of the shepherds calendar and I am about to put the rams in with the ewes. I have a barn full of hay so that winter can throw its worst at us. It gives me a reason to get up each day and go outside to enjoy all weathers. I said that I would give up my sheep when I reached 65 but now at 75 I still cant face life with out them. I do have 5 grandchildren and an otherwise normal life.

Grannybuy you are right. A few years ago a friend of mine died of cancer at the age of 52. I used to think I would give anything to be like her. She was stunningly beautiful, thick lustrous hair, lovely teeth and hair, worked at staying slim (she was a beauty therapist). Well I am still here at the age of 64, albeit with some of bits missing. I think we can have days when we get down about what's happening (and I have been very low about my hair loss) but if I really think about it, I am lucky. I am going to start the day on that positive note !

Er.....my comment about melancholy was meant to be a joke! It was not intended to refer to the OP or anybody else. Blimey, you have to be careful here! Anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence against you!

At 65, I feel lucky to have no joint pains, but keep worrying that this could change any minute! I avoid looking in the mirror, because I hate the creases at either side of my mouth. Worst of all, I have thinning hair, wear either glasses or contact lenses, have some false teeth and have a hearing aid in my left ear. Just as well I don't have any replacement joints yet, or I really would begin to feel that there was little of the original me left!!
Despite this, I am very aware that there are so many people of my era no longer alive. Some would have had great teeth, wonderful heads of hair and the rest, but they're not here. I am, missing bits and all. I am so grateful.

So right Joan

Joan, just the ticket, I needed that as I too am 68 and suddenly aware of falling apart at the seams!

Right on Joan

I'm 68 and not enjoying the aches and pains, but otherwise I'm OK. True, at size 16 I hate having a thick waist, and I hate those surface veins on my legs, but as long as my mind is working I guess I'll survive. I'm in the writers' group and performance group at our local U3A and have been asked to do some slam poetry for our 2014 start-up meeting (a sort of open day for new and existing members). I might have posted this before, but this is what I'll use:

Beware the Baby Boomers

Don’t call us elderly
Don’t call us old
Don’t think for a minute we’re sweet.
We’re still the same people
Still feisty and bold
Who rocked to the Merseyside beat.

Don’t think for a minute
We’re shocked at your deeds
Or your radical ways are so new.
We might have looked sweet
In our sandals and beads
But our ways turned the atmosphere blue.

Our parents were sure
We’d be so pure and good
As we started to grow up and date
But we smashed all the barriers
Fought and withstood
While our ways won the freedom debate.

But new generations
Have no damn idea
That their absolute right to be free
Did not come from God
And did not just appear
It was fought for by people like me.

And that spirit remains
Though we might appear strange
And you find there’s no easy connection.
But the grey power we hold
Has the power to change
The result of just any election!

Cazthebookworm. So glad you mentioned the fashionista programme. Just caught it on demand. Fabulous women. Brilliant attitude. We all have rough days. Sometimes I don't want to get up in the morning but am always glad I did. Don't let life get you down embrace it as lots of the people on this blog are doing. When it knocks you down knock back - harder!!

Melancholia literally means 'black bile'.
Let's not go there

I didn't interpret the OP as melancholic, Greatnan. Melancholia was a chronic condition in Victorian times, wasn't it?
I thought she was just temporarily p*ssed off

Melancholy - the pleasure of being miserable!

Id just like to say that this was a thread started by gm when she was having a bad day. She's entitled, as we all are. It's not a thread for telling anyone to count their blessings.