"That old lady"

posset

Why is it that everyone admires a gnarly ancient oak tree and not a gnarly ancient person?

Oooh Posset!, I'm often found admiring an older lady with a bit of style or attitude. My children also comment on style whether the individual is 20 or 90yrs old. You are not invisible.,... style is timeless, ageless. 😎

M0nica

Cariadgagain I still wear leggings, with tunic dresses over them or big knitted sweaters. If someone told me to dress age appropriately I wouldn't have clue what to wear. Whether living in semi-rural Oxfordshire is very different to where you live, I do not know, but when photographed with DiL and GD I was in York.

But I never take any notice of rude people, tey are not worth tuppence halfpenny and there rudeness says more about them than it does about you.

I live in remote West Wales. The internet has obviously made some difference here - as there is a local historian that collects loads of photos of recent eras and I spotted one that was of a group of women from the Womens Institute going off for an outing - and thought "Oh yeah - taken in the 1950s by the look of it" - and then found it had been taken in the 1980s! But things have caught up more since the Internet became commonplace.

As you say - the rudeness of the woman concerned said a lot more about her than it did about me.

That was me dressed "conservatively" - but a lot of other women that I know personally round here (think they're pretty much all English??) dress in hippy fashion and that goes from about teenage up to about 10 years older (ie in their 80's) - as this area has a large group of hippies living here too (think Glastonbury and Totnes).

Cariadgagain I still wear leggings, with tunic dresses over them or big knitted sweaters. If someone told me to dress age appropriately I wouldn't have clue what to wear. Whether living in semi-rural Oxfordshire is very different to where you live, I do not know, but when photographed with DiL and GD I was in York.

But I never take any notice of rude people, tey are not worth tuppence halfpenny and there rudeness says more about them than it does about you.

M0nica - make me officially envious re no-one batting an eyelid then on you wearing leggings. You must be in a different part of the country to me - as I was on receiving end of a nasty comment yesterday implying I was in my nightwear!!!

I wasn't at all - I was in leggings and teeshirt and have been trying to think of whether I've ever spotted women in my age group wearing that in this area and can't recall any. Oh well - they'll have to think what they please - as I know that to be normal wear even for my agegroup - and it isn't in this part of the country, but it is in the rest I believe. I dress as per the country as a whole....

Why is it that everyone admires a gnarly ancient oak tree and not a gnarly ancient person?

Farzanah

We live in a youth oriented, appearance obsessed culture, where there is a stigma and fear about old age, therefore understandably I think, many older folk strive to appear younger.

It seems to be a matter of pride to be told that “you don’t look your age” or dress/act like a stereotypical old person.
I think we should reclaim the word “old” and admit it (it’s not just a number) and glorify in it, having lived to reach this time of life, relishing what is left, instead of being in denial.

I am 78, out and proud about it, and if anyone says that I don’t look my age I retort “this is what an old person looks like”.

I am not sure I entirely agree with this. I think the nub of the problem is that phrase 'stereotypical old person'.

The problem is that there is no such thing as a 'stereotypical old person'. The older we get the more varied we look. Even people in their 40s and 50s can be white-haired and/or (men) bald as a coot. while others are fresh faced, no grey hair and a full head of hair - and health to go with it.

At 81 (my age) I see people my age, elderly bent visibly aged people, with dementia in care homes and others, full heads of hair still standing tall, climbing mountains and and running keep fit classes.

The problem is sterotypes. When anyone expresses surprise when they realise my age. I just say, 'There are plenty of people my age looking like me. Stop being blinded by stereotypes.

As for clothing, I wouldn't recognise age-approrpiate clothing if I say it. it doesn't exist anymore. Older people wear whatever they like whenever they like.

We have a family photo, a few years old where a 12 year old, 45 year old and 75 year old are dressed almost dentically with clumpy footwhere, leggings and loose sweaters, different styles but all eseentially the same.

I am 69 and as a friend of mine recently said, we are lucky to have got thus far. Some of our friends did not make that age. I personally don’t feel ‘old’ though sometimes when my arthritis pain kicks in I do!

petra

Mirren

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!

You probably weren’t the only person thinking that.

Actually I was surprised at how many young people were getting the jab, I mean late teens early 20s and so on. I was looking at them and thinking they must have some condition that wasn't obvious and feeling sorry that they were there with the oldies.

Farzanah

We live in a youth oriented, appearance obsessed culture, where there is a stigma and fear about old age, therefore understandably I think, many older folk strive to appear younger.

It seems to be a matter of pride to be told that “you don’t look your age” or dress/act like a stereotypical old person.
I think we should reclaim the word “old” and admit it (it’s not just a number) and glorify in it, having lived to reach this time of life, relishing what is left, instead of being in denial.

I am 78, out and proud about it, and if anyone says that I don’t look my age I retort “this is what an old person looks like”.

Great post and well said! I think of getting older as lucky and the time left to be cherished unless one is seriously ill/in pain/dementia etc.
A few dear friends no longer have the opportunity to be fretful about ageing.

We're old to those young lads

Mirren

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!

You probably weren’t the only person thinking that.

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).

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.

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!

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!

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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’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.

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 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).