"That old lady"

Thinking about the Falklands war today and suddenly realised that it was 42 years ago!! I still think of it as as recent conflict but if course it's not, and neither am I at 81!!!!

heavenlyheath

This isn't a coment of growing old but the other thing mentioned in first comment. Supermarkets letting young people pack your groceries to raise funds this happens a lot coming up to Christmas I hate it they have no idea how to pack your food stuffs.

That’s one thing I won’t miss this year. I do scan and go, whatever it’s called, at Tesco.

My beloved grandchildren now call me Nanna Oop - officially old person. We laugh!! It’s OK.
In fact, it’s great and also inevitable
x
😊

Babs03

I felt old when first was told by a GP 'oh that can happen a lot with age', since then this has become a regular mantra from the medical profession. Am in my late sixties and consider myself not bad for my years but what if one day a GP says this and it actually isn't because of my age but because I actually have something rather nasty wrong with me?

The first time a doctor said that to me I was 30. I'd been in a car crash and for some reason my injuries were age related. Bit weird.

At the age of 65, my brain is in it's 20's but my body is in it's 80's unfortunately.

GrandmaKT That is a good one! You'll be on your 3 wheeler now!

I don't feel old but I must be as my daughter is a grandmother

My 95year old mother is living with dementia and sometimes thinks I'm her sister. One of my sons commented jokingly that it must be because she can't believe she has a daughter as old as me. Oddly for me, this made me feel old.

My memory is not what it once was . I don't recognise people who I ought to remember.
I wonder if I have dementia but a younger friend says it's normal with ageing. I'm 76 but others my age don't seem to suffer.
I try to keep healthy so I can keep doing the things I like.
When I was 13 I desperately wanted a pony. Now I wonder if I'll need to wait until I'm 80!

I shop in Lidl, I’m 5’1”, so have to climb onto the bottom shelf to reach the stuff on the top, lots of people also do it. Suddenly, everyone wants to help me, they haven’t got the last five years. Suddenly I am old, I appreciate it, but you have to be careful in Lidl and make sure stuff is in date. So I politely refuse and carry on. I tell them my next trick is to swing from the light fittings . I’m 79.

I remember one of my children in primary school saying their teacher was ‘old’- she would have been in her early twenties and very young looking ! All in the eye of the beholder I guess. As they say, you are as old as you feel. Some days I am 20, some days I am 70.

Remember starting work in a bank at 16 and being told how much I might be earning at 21.

21!

The manager could have said 91, it sounded so far away.

Now, of course, five years flies by in the blink of an eye.

I'm just me. I tend to forget how old l am and add a year or two on, makes OH seem older so he hates it and corrects me (always a nice surprise that I'm younger).

Rosie
When you say you were horrified that they meant you did you not think that when you were a young girl you thought your grandparents etc looked old?
Just because you think you don’t look your age because in your head you’re not that age to the people looking at you ( and me) 😁 we look old, because we are.

I’m 84, which is old. I am not ashamed of it. My mind is fairly lively, but my body is not. Why are some people afraid to admit they’re old? I suppose it’s because they are nearer to death.

I guess my "thought for the day" = "You know you're getting older when you start analysing the obituary column in the local paper to see how old everyone was when they died". I was horrified when I moved to remote Wales to realise that so many times the age at death was in their 90's. Instantly wondered whether I should move back where I came from - in order to make sure I died at a more normal (ie younger) age. I definitely do NOT want to live into my 90's.

Since then my parents both died at 93 years old (though neither of them was what I call "naturally alive" by then).

For a long time I lived in the blithe optimism that I might well not even reach retirement age - as there is absolutely loads of heart problems both sides of my family and my younger brother hadn't even reached middle age when he had a heart operation. So I just thought "Both my parents will die from heart problems in middle age, then my brother and I will do so in middle age" and shrugged my shoulders in acceptance of that fact and thought "I don't want to be old anyway - so that'll do me". At most I only expected a few years of retirement before "popping my clogs" and again thought "That'll do me - I deserve a few years doing what I decide and not having to do a job any longer and then I'll be gone".

Errrrm...I'm now very concerned that so many people aren't dying until their 90's here and know I won't be one of the "sudden deaths" at a much younger age we've had since "those jabs" came along in 2021. So I am very concerned my body might be set to live into its 90's if I let things take their course.

Oh well - and all I can do is stick to the decision I've made not to live into my 90's (currently early 70's and "naturally alive" as I call it .....). Each to their own - but being in my 90's is not for me.....

One of the things I wonder about is looking back to just how different a person I was in my 20's (the 1970s). I was naive, idealistic, much more trusting of people than even prior to 2020 and my cynicism rating has gone off the scale since then. I don't recognise the younger me that had lifts with strange people, stayed in strange peoples houses and communes, invented one idealistic scheme for the local community and gave it away (think it's still going), invented another idealistic scheme for the local community and gave that away too and am wondering if the reason a worldwide idealistic scheme has 99% identical wording is it's my second scheme renamed.

70-something me is a very different person....

I also saw my Mum when I looked in a mirror, but lately I no longer look like her. One day the penny dropped and I realised that while her image remains the same in my mind my own self image is now in reality 5+ years older than she was when she died.

petra I don't have any memories of grandmothers sadly, as they had died by the time I was 5. But my mum who died at 80 was a "little old lady" from about 60. She suffered dreadfully from rheumatoid arthritis and was really frail. At 72, I swim several times a week, volunteer at a couple of organisations and am generally very independent. I suppose technically I am old and yes my back feels old in the mornings but "that old lady" is not who I am. Well, it's not who I feel I am. I can see though how I must look to the young but hate the label.

Hollycat

I shop in Lidl, I’m 5’1”, so have to climb onto the bottom shelf to reach the stuff on the top, lots of people also do it. Suddenly, everyone wants to help me, they haven’t got the last five years. Suddenly I am old, I appreciate it, but you have to be careful in Lidl and make sure stuff is in date. So I politely refuse and carry on. I tell them my next trick is to swing from the light fittings . I’m 79.

I'm also in my 70s. I'm taller than you so don't have quite the same problem with shelves but I love that young people are so helpful. I always think young men, late teens and 20s, must think I'm like their gran as they do go out of their way to help. I was almost mobbed on a recent train journey with 14 month old GS, his buggy and bag of trick for the day. Oh that I'd had that much attention 50 years ago. Only one woman offered help.

I'm late sixties and feel about right for my age. What I do find hard to absorb is how long ago everything now is. A poster on Mumsnet said she found some vintage Christmas wrapping paper in her mum's loft. Much to my amazement she gleefully exclaimed it was from 1995. I've just about come to terms with the fact that 1974 was 50 years ago, but 1995 vintage, crickey.

I went for my Covid and Flu jabs last week( I'm 68 ) .
I sat in the queue wondering why I was sitting there with all these old people!

I am a great grandmother, and although I am proud to be one, I don't like the fact that this means I am the mother of a grandfather!

When I was 40, I realised I could see 60 on the (very distant) horizon, and that I needed to start thinking of myself as approaching old age. I remember hearing Vince Cable, at just under 70, describing himself as being in ‘late middle age’, so I didn’t see any need to age faster than Vince! 😂🤣😅

I struggle to remember that I’m 68, I usually think of myself as in my fifties!

My mom said older never old. Also dances never got old. I call middle age as in your 60's not 40's like it was when I was a teenager . My dad always said you are as young as the person you are feeling 😂. My mom was 4 months older and she called him her toy boy when she asked me what one was.

theworriedwell

Babs03

I felt old when first was told by a GP 'oh that can happen a lot with age', since then this has become a regular mantra from the medical profession. Am in my late sixties and consider myself not bad for my years but what if one day a GP says this and it actually isn't because of my age but because I actually have something rather nasty wrong with me?

The first time a doctor said that to me I was 30. I'd been in a car crash and for some reason my injuries were age related. Bit weird.

Now that's even wierder than my own experience with a doctor many years back now - I've never forgotten going to my then doctor and complaining about pain in hands and arms and he said "Normal aches and pains - to be expected at your age". !!!!

My response was to say "In my 30's?!!!!!!" and I sat there gobsmacked and wandering just what state of health he thought an elderly person should be expected to accept as normal and walked out and swopped doctor. His replacement soon realised it was RSI from my job - ie nothing to do with me personally (my age or otherwise).