75 going on 40

but how do you know you feel younger than your years if youve never been 75 before!!! such a ridiculous comment to make......a lot of us are young at heart and its got nothing to do with age just our outlook on life in general...

Galen think it was 'Groovy Kind of Love'. But can't for the life of me remember by whom. I'll be back.

It was the Mindbenders Galen covered by Phil Collins and no doubt many others.

That was it! Knew I'd heard it before

Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders at the time Groovy Kind of Love came out, Kitty, though what became of Wayne, I have no idea.
The song was one of my favourites <comes over all nostalgic thinking about first boyfriend etc>

Actually I feel older now that I am on Gransnet. I'm nearly 64 and thought nothing of it until I looked at all these discussion about aging. Now I realise I am getting old! Moi?
I'm with Nonu - I look in the mirror and think "not too shabby" then forget about it. My husband is a young 70 and thinks I'm just a kid.

Oh sugar rockgran!

You are a spring chicken.

I live in a retirement flat. As I always have to explain: that's not a retirement home with staff to look after the old folks, it's a block of flats for older people. I don't integrate well with the other residents as the favourite activity is to drink tea and complain about the aches and pains. And gossip about the black sheep of the flats (that's me).

Since I stopped work I have joined several groups and volunteer for a couple of charities. I reckon I'm behaving quite a bit younger than my real age. I had a very conventional life - most of it - and went on my first protest march and took part in my first demo last year.

Does anyone say I really ought to be sitting with my knitting and complaining?

I'd rather be 73 than the alternative. My mum died at this age, exactly 31 years ago today.

Anno

anno You're not going anywhere yet, we need you on here!

I have just tried to read her blog (not the bit on Gransnet, the main one) - and gave up, it is unreadable. She sounds like everybody's stereotype of an old woman. The thought that I may sound and read like that in 5 years, is enough to drive me to an early demise. I will start drinking now.

Except of course I will not, because I will remember my mother, young and giggly, wearing lacy underwear, always elegantly dressed and parting until her death at 85. Described by a friend as 'like champagne, when she came into the room everybody sparkled'

The 80 year olds we have met on holidays to Jordan and Central Asia and Egypt. Another 70 year old, still tall smooth and handsome and jetting all over Europe because he is a hot shot in a number of international organisations.

I accept that this lady has some physical disabilities - but then so do quite a number of 40 year olds. A disability slows one's mad gallop at any age.

As I said earlier I am who I am. Chronologically I am 70, mentally I am no particular age at all. I am just myself.

Like Nonu and others I look in the mirror and think I look pretty good all things considered.



Then I put my glasses on.

MaryXYX Go for it!

Too right, FlicketyB - my chronological age is 74, but, like you, I feel no particular age. I really think the problem comes from outside - certainly the media. I know very well that if I should have the misfortune to be involved on a road accident, the local rag would have screaming headlines 'OAP run over ....." Or whatever. I loath that term OAP with a passion. I think that I and others of my generation have somehow missed the boat. When I was in my teens and early 20s (late '50s and early '60s), gravitas was everything - the older you were, the more likely you were to be listened to and respected (the politicians in that era, for instance, although perhaps respected is a step too far!) therefore I was too young to make any worthwhile comment. Now I am too old to make any worthwhile comment and the politicians seem to have an average age of 12. (OK, I jest, but considerably younger than my heyday.). The 12-year old in the Bank the other day when I gave her my DOB (1939) remarked in an amazed tone that I "looked so well." Now I realise that all of us in our 70s are all supposed to look frail and poorly .........

Thanks, Lona and dusty. I wasn't 'fishing', honestly!

... round here the description is 'pensioner'. To which I often wonder, how do they know that because someone is, say, 70, they receive a pension. Not everybody does.

im 53 and disabled and cant do what i should be doing at any age or like Diana (waiting for god )tv programme i wont say how many years ago that was, but inside i think im 25, with a teenage 15 year old daughter you have to have a young mind with what she comes out with otherwise i thinlk i would have had a heart attack along time ago

a lot of grans today dont look like grans and i do think its because older people are now working in their later years and we live in a fadt paced world now....when i say dont look like a gran i was thinking of how my gran looked when i was a child...i remember her as a plump lady with white hair tied back in a bun...she always wore a wrap over apron...when she went out she always wore a hat with a hatpin ( such lovely memories

Heres another thought -- old age is a poor reward for a life times work ?

I have just received news --that the children (2) of mature age; had not bothered to share their Christmas with their mum, in family home ;
but worst still- she having been diagnosed with cancer in November, and very down, under going chemo; spent alone just her and hubby;
unfortunately she lives the other side of this globe to me, so was unable to visit. I find this so sad!

I so agree with the sentiment of preferring to be older than the alternative. My Dad died at 71, he had not long retired,my Mum died a year ago at 89. I used to work with the elderly, and it drove me potty when they moaned about being old and infirm. My Dad would have liked the opportunity to be old, but didn't get there.I know that aging is crap, but dying is worse.

MaryXXX respect we live in a similar retirement development housing but I am fortunate that the neighbours are all nice people and we don't tend to have any "gossipy tea parties" every now and then during the summer/warmer months we have a party and my neighbours are all partial to the odd tipple which makes for a good time. Enjoy your future marches & demo's how about doing some festivals and ditch any idea of knitting.

Family relationships are complex and I never feel easy when we castigate children because a parent is neglected.

Family relationships start at birth and we can all think of examples we know of poor parenting now, much of it more subtle than violence or physical neglect. Children grow up and move away and their parents morph into dear old people who miss the children they rarely see.

I made home visits to older people for 10 years and I saw every range of family relationships from the kindest, most supportive, with children making heroic efforts to support their parents to others where parents had little or no contact with adult children.

I spent some time visiting an elderly man, a poor thing, devastated by the loss of a wife he adored and unable to cope without her and with adult children and grand children he never saw. It was by chance when visiting a neighbour, also a client, we saw this man in the street, and she turned to me and told me that he was an unpleasant violent man who had terrorised and hit his wife and children and, in his mid-80s, had been banned from the local pub for threatening someone with his walking stick. The neighbour did not know he was one of my clients and I said nothing.

Of course some good parents end up with selfish neglectful children but family relationships break down for reasons that may date back decades before the parents reached old age.

I am not keen at all on the word pensioner >
Much prefer the American term Senior , sounds more dignified IMO

I like the quote by Maurice Chevalier - Old age isn't so bad - when you consider the alternative!