loss of youth and vigour

Suffolk is so nice Pobcob.

I am 62 and just about to move to Suffolk so looking forward to many more years of living life. Happy to be one of the lucky ones who has reached this stage of my life unlike some others and still enjoying everything I do. Cheer up, life is great !

well i have never bought beauty products(most have animal oil in them) perfume is based on musk (wild pig) .i believe in natural items.i do use suntan cream on my face though .have done for donkey 's years.. you are as god made you .enjoy what you have and dont pretend to be someone else(fashion model)yes i am over weight due to health problems. i eat like a sparrow but still get bloated.(palm oil ) has a lot to answer for...and yes i dye my hair once a year.my knees creak.i have arthritis. but god has been good to me and i am 62 this year. an age i thought i would never reach.

I have been very lucky with my health. At almost 80 I have, so far, avoided every serious medical problem.
Reading how so many of you have serious health problems certainly makes me thankful for my own good health. I don’t know how I would cope with a life-limiting painful situation, but I suspect that I would turn into a crabby old lady. Funnily enough, although I consider other people of my age to be quite old I don’t think of myself in that way.
After having a hip replacement four weeks ago I have been suffering from a severe lack of sleep. Lying on my back, as instructed, leaves me aching, and with a numb bum! This morning I woke up lying on my left side, having slept for six hours. My hip hasn’t dislocated itself and although I feel stiff and sore, as usual, I can see light at the end of the tunnel. A good night’s sleep works wonders!
I have never bothered much about my looks, but do regret the loss of the energy I used to have. I take things at my own pace, and don’t worry much if something doesn’t get done.
I should soon me fully mobile again, and able to drive. My choir is singing in Llangollen, a week on Saturday, and I am determined to be there on stage with them - with, or without crutches! Singing keeps me young!
Losing friends and family members makes me aware of my own end, creeping up on me. It doesn’t worry me much, but I hope that it is sudden and painless when it comes. One of my friends says that she plans to drop dead of a heart attack while being chased by someone’s jealous wife! Not a bad plan!

Daisyboots

It’s my birthday today. At 71 there is no way I can think of myself as middle aged any more. How I kidded myself for so long I don’t know but will Seize the day even if it’s a grey and stormy one, and will enjoy the fact that I am reasonably fit and well.

What do I miss most? Health. I rarely went to a doctor, did all the diy, helped my husband repair cars and lorries in his garage business, looked after my grandchildren. I hit 70 and have been ill with a painful condition call Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) and very bad Anaemia. It's not a killer, which I am grateful for, but it's changed my world.

I see myself as 71 going on 18 and I do still feel quite youthful, lots of energy, walk a lot and my hair went grey only fairly recently, it's still very thick and curly. Not too many lines and wrinkles either. Not on medication, not overweight, haven't been to the doctor for at least 6 years. I do tend to doze off in the afternoons and evenings but yes, I'm good for my age. Just as well because DH isn't.

Yeah, alright. Never grown up have I?!

Wow Gonegirl You certainly do have a very young outlook/attitude. Not that 77 is old (obviously) !

Dear Grande tante, I'm afraid you will be horrified and no doubt scandalised to learn that at no point in my life have I ever "wished I could spend all day doing housework"!

#everyyearcounts

I appear to have reached the age when we actually boast about our age!!!

I'm 77 actually Tillybelle.

Of course, it would be lovely to look young forever, with no lines, wrinkles, lumps and bumps and grey hair! But it is replaced with experience, maybe wisdom(?) and a gratefulness to still be here and able to make the most of life, growing old is a privilege that we don’t all get, make the most of bus pass, low car insurance and concession prices !! ... and keep smiling ..it makes everyone look younger?

I don’t mourn the loss of my youth. I have more confidence now then when I was in my teens and a young mum.

Some days my mind thinks I'm 35... then I make the mistake of looking in the mirror!

HillyN, how sad. I have always been quite realistic, I am no beauty and nobody is going to stop me in the street and ask me to be a model.

I am just very ordinary looking and I am very grateful for it. I have seen the problems that really attractive women have. Too much unwanted male attention and finding that men at work cannot see past the pretty face and take you seriously. My face and figure never impeded my career and that is something to be grateful for.

And as my mother said, most people find marriage partners, no matter what they look like.

I've never been happy with my face or body, whatever age I was/am. However I now accept that is the way I look and don't fret about it. Much!

I used to think I looked quite good until I had an eye operation. Now I can see all the wrinkles!!!

Reading the original post about the young woman leaping about I could just picture her but while I was slim when young I certainly didnt leap about. I have always been told I dont look my age and even the oncologist says I must have looked after myself because he would never have thought I am 75. But it hasnt stopped the big C coming back as metasteses on my spine 23 years after grade 1 breast cancer. Having weekly chemotherapy is certainly pulling me down and looking in the bathroom mirror just now could hardly recognise my bloated face and the rapidly thinning hair. Add the nausea and yes my get up and go has certainly got up and went. It would be nice to be able to think it will come back again but there is no cure for this it can only be treated. So I can only hope.

ooooogh the spell corrector thingy - not "energy and vigorous". but energy and vigor
sorry I don't see them before they get stuck in the everlasting stone of the thread - eyes not very good at the screen glare.

Jaffacake2. So glad to hear you recovered to see your family expand! You are so right - it isn't looks or even energy and vigorous, it's the spirit within that matters! So glad to hear that yours is doing really well - long may it last! ?

Gonegirl. That is so clever!! I had no idea you were 75!! I was sure you were still in your 50s and had only just come across from MumsNet! You have a very "fresh" and young outlook imho!

The jobs I used to be able to do and enjoy doing, when I see them building up around me, do get me down.
But generally I don't mind being old and a cripple (tut tut but it's what I call myself).
I was lucky enough to be able-bodied most of my adult life. There are so many children who never enjoy that, yet they are so brave and good natured. I taught in a school for very disabled children for a while. It was so moving what the children went through. The young teenager who was severely dismorphic and just never went out in public, who, when having an operation to move the bones in his head which were growing into his brain, had his optic nerve accidentally severed so he lost the sight of one eye. Did he complain? I never saw him complain once. Yet when I think of him I cry!
No, life's been ok, and this stage is manageable or put-up-withable! I know I get depressed but my problems are nothing really. If the house needs things and I can't do them yet and I can't pay someone else either then what difference does that really make to a life? I still eat, drink, sleep, talk to the dogs, and keep going even if I have to lie down when the pain is a bit much. At least I can lie down! I don't have to go to work! Being retired has compensations!