With improved health and life expectancy, your middle-age could go on for decades.
Not that long ago, people were considered diminished (or heading that way) by age sixty, but with better health and longevity, our understanding of aging is changing. Now, 60-year-olds are starting over. 70-year-olds are finding another gear. 80-year-olds are sublime thinkers, levitating over earthbound drama. And then there’s my Mom, who I’ve told you about. At 91, she’s still truckin’. Well, not literally, you guys. But she’s curious and thoughtful and as active as her creaky old bones will let her.
And she’s not even that unique anymore.
If you think about youth as the first fifty years of your life, and very old age as a time of extreme diminution, there’s a lengthy middle. That period may last as long as it takes to raise kids to adulthood. Mom’s last kid left home forty years ago.
What are you going to do with all that time?
Olders (a term my friend Ashton Applewhite uses) don’t look like beautiful kids anymore, but we’re starting to get over that and appreciate our talents, gifts, strengths, and expertise.
One of those strengths is that we feel less bound by rules and convention. We played the games all these years, but now we don’t have to. As much. Or if we do, we do it because it serves our purposes. We’re so tough and awesome.
Old age is changing. Do you sense that? The fences are weathered and falling down. We can run free. Sometimes we don’t really understand how good we have it, because mortality is a bitch. But to focus on the positive, you almost have a second adulthood available to you. What are you going to do with it?
When does middle age exactly start?
And, as you rightly pointed out, Lynne–it has no end. (Glorious.)
It amuses me when people refer to “someone who’s having a mid-life crisis.” It’s an awakening. If we don’t wake up, it does become a crisis.
I’m busy tracking down working nonagenarians. Just met a gentleman, a still practicing 90-year old lawyer. Yes, Ma’am. He has several philosophies: if you like what you’re doing, you can keep doing it for life. I learn something new every day! His plan: to retire the day he realizes he’s old, which, according to him, he’s not.
It is indeed liberating to challenge the firmly held beliefs that growing older equals decline.
So absolutely not true.
And to be living proof of it!
Thanks, for the post, Lynne.
Danie, the law and medicine are two of the very complex professions that benefit from older age. The reason has to do with pattern recognition. It’s yet another benefit of aging that we fail to take into account and don’t value. Your attorney is inspiring! Thanks for telling us about him.
Love this, Lynne! So happy to hear Mom continues to do well at 91. My mom turned 93 in December and has recovered for a life-threatening illness. She is happy and living her life to the fullest at Assisted Living, her new “home’. She walks the “Brookdale mile” (around the halls of the facility) twice a day and now has several
residents joining her; goes to exercises classes and serves coffee at the Coffee Hour. My 50 and 60-something siblings and I are all taking lessons from her. I turn 70 in July and you have made me feel very good about that. Your message of positive aging is resonating. 🙂
Kathy, thank God your mom is fine now. I did not know she had been so ill. What a recovery! I think living in a communal situation like that, if it’s a nice place, well-run, etc., must be such a relief to some people who are finding it harder to manage. I see Mom slowing down so much. She’s happy within her current capabilities, although sometimes I wonder if just cleaning the house is almost getting beyond her. She is proud of doing it in sections, as her energy permits. I’ve offered to pay for a helper, or do some myself, but she resists. “Lynne, I have to do SOMEthing,” she says. Recently she gave us back some Christmas ornaments, and my big sis was really upset. She thought it meant Mom was giving up, but I know it’s about lightening Mom’s load. She feels lighter, more in control of her environment, with less. She doesn’t need so much anymore. Her Christmas tree certainly is smaller now. So interesting to observe, isn’t it? I’m so glad your mother is thriving. So happy for you.
Thanks, Lynne and I’m happy to hear your mom is doing so well. I chuckled when I read your story of her giving away her Christmas ornaments. My mom has been sifting and sorting through her paraphernalia for years in preparation for this time. It reminds me that I need to start doing the same, in stages. Our needs do change as we age and lightening the load is certainly a wise choice.
My mother-in-law will be 95 soon and she still drives to church and to the local grocery store. My husband and I are thankful that she is still doing things for herself (she does have a helper 5 days a week) and she seems to enjoy life. That perhaps is the key. Do what you enjoy.
Yes, Judy! Make yourself happy. By 95 we surely ought to know what that looks like. I’m glad your MIL is so capable. Happy for you guys.
Since I’m in my 70s (having found a new gear!) I’m going to do this for the next few years. I hardly wrote a single word—apart from university papers, and a few newspaper articles, until a few months ago. So off I went, into the wild blue blogasphere. So I’ll stay here for a while. At least until I master Facebook!
The blogosphere is lucky to have you, Diane. Sounds like you are happy.
To keep my “vehicle” (body) healthy, strong and “moving”…I dance two evenings each week and take Coreball classes two mornings each week. I am a certified Tour Director, so I lead tours primarily in the spring and fall. I am currently working with Road Scholar as a group leader doing the Signature City Detroit program: http://www.roadscholar.org/n/program/summary.aspx?did=1%2D9I45JV&MC=
Since “work” is very part time…the rest of my life is balanced with family, travel and learning. I feel blessed and I am enJOYing this stage of my life.
So true. I had my children late in life so in my early 50s I have teens. I will be 60 when they leave the nest but am already planning for that chapter and discovering what charges me up creatively.
You have teenagers at home? Amazing, considering how calm and logical you always sound. Good job!
That made me laugh. Menopausal mom and teens can be an interesting mix. But I think one benefit of being an older mom was that I never felt I should be doing something else. I am now starting to feel though “it’s time for me”.