Since September is my birthday month, it’s a time I usually wax philosophical about life, ageing, what I’ve accomplished, what I wish I’d accomplished but haven’t, what I still dream of doing and being, and so on. I’m finally at an age where I look around and say “What happened? How did my life whiz by so quickly? How realistic are my intentions for accomplishing this thing?”

There are many things to say about aging gracefully (or otherwise), being prepared physically, financially, emotionally, and all the other ways we need to adjust our lives for our changing circumstances. Yet, what I want to focus on is the fear we face of getting old, being old, watching our life slowly leave us. As mentioned in an earlier post about change, what if we could look forward to ageing as an exciting, invigorating experience?

We know what it’s like to be physically vital (most of us), to be looking forward to the next stage of life. All of us who are reading this have been toddlers who became tweens and then teenagers and then adults of various stages and ages. There’s always something to look forward to, something to plan for, isn’t there. What if that’s also true about getting to be a “senior citizen?”

How inventive could you be about planning for the physical changes you expect? As our bodies change we probably also change our diet, our exercise routines, our habits, our social lives. What if we were able to embrace this next stage of life as just something else to plan for and have fun figuring out what would work best for us in our situation?

After all, none of us are going to get out of this alive. Why not make the ending as much fun as we can? Even though we don’t know exactly how we will be at the age of 90, more or less, we have some clues from how our parents were. What if we could start planning for this in our 50’s? or 60’s? or 70’s? What would we do?

There are many “let’s just laugh about it” quotations about aging besides the “age is just a number” one, only a few of which I can actually quote. Two most excellent ones show up under the “Something to Consider” section on the home page. I’ll leave you with two others that I particularly like, one of which is a comfort, the other a good idea.

This one I cannot quote, but the idea has to do with getting forgetful or losing your memory: It’s not such a bad thing to lose your memory because everything you then experience and every person you meet is new and different and can be interesting (because you don’t remember what was before).

And this is one that inspires me to continue playing, being curious, and trying new things: “We don’t stop playing because we get old; we get old because we stop playing.” I have no idea who made this statement – maybe folk wisdom? Or simply a play on a George Bernard Shaw quote about laughing?

I’d like to be like cheese or wine – the ones that are more valuable the older they get.