The aging process, how do you feel about it?

I agree, we do seem to do a better job of getting our priorities in the right order as we age. In my case I've noticed over the years that I no longer know a stranger. I can start up a conversation with anyone, anywhere. Sometimes they look at me like 'lady, do I know you?'

I wouldn't mind turning time back a little myself. It doesn't seem so long ago that everything was where it was suppose to be. One day I looked in the mirror and thought 'When did that slide south?'

I know I hated leaving each year behind. Now, not so much. I didn't start getting gray hair until about six years ago I guess, at least not where I could see it. The gray doesn't bother me, as a matter of fact, I'm trying to figure out a way of lightening my hair without covering all the gray. My hair has darkened considerably over the last ten years. My cousin and I were both blond headed. Now we're both dark headed. She wrote once that she wanted to try to change her color to a nice red. Don't think she ever did it though. At this point in my life I can no more imagine what it would be like to be 70 or 80 then I could 40 or 50 when I was 20 and 30. Good thing time takes care of this while we're not looking. We can't see it coming even though we're looking straight at it barreling toward us.

you're about the same age as me. i've felt myself aging since i was 23. i suppose i miss having a 20 year old body but to be honest i wouldn't go back to the kind of psychological turmoil young people have

lol, that's easy to say when you're 22-years-old and all your parts are where they're suppose to be and they don't creak when you walk. Ahhhh, you're a cutie. I do agree with your grandfather, we should all grow old gracefully. I don't have a problem with the aging process in its self, I have a problem with the way it feels, the way it looks on me when the light shines a certain way.

You are 24-years-old. TWENTY-FOUR-YEARS-OLD! Do you know what I was doing when I was your age? I would get up at five a.m.; because back then it took a good hour to get to work. Drop the kids off at the sitter, then work all day, physical work I might add, none of this sitting behind a desk and answering the phone stuff. pick-up the kids and listen to them argue all the way home because they were tired and cranky. Come home, work in the yard, cook supper, get it on the table and feed my family, fuss with my husband. Send the kids out to play awhile in the front yard while there was daylight left. Scrape the kitchen clean, you know, remove all the spaghetti from the spokes in the chair, the garlic bread on the floor. I would do the laundry, get it all dried, folded, and put away. Run the vacuum, maybe dust a little. Get the kids in, bathe them and get them settled with a cartoon, take my shower, get the kids to bed, fuss with my husband some more. Spend a little time visiting with my sister on the phone. Go to bed with a good book, get up the next morning and do it all over again and never flinch once. Back then I did not leave my house until everything was picked-up and in order. I couldn't stand coming home to a house that was out of order. Now just getting out of bed and getting the coffee pot started has its drawbacks. Feet scream, ankles ache and I can't see past my nose. Usually my glasses are lost in the bedding somewhere. And I'm only 51. I think the problem with aging is it sneaks up on us, one day we're firm, smooth and nothing hurts. Then, when we aren't looking, everything sags, gets wrinkled and crunches when we move it.

Well aren't you just precious, you're what, 30? Let me tell you a secret, you're fixing to start the ride of your life. Your getting ready to find out what it means when the expression is used 'Life is like a role of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes' 'I'm only 30' in two or three years you'll be 51, mark my words. I don't think any of us are really worried about aging so much as we get tired of our bodies reminding us every time we crawl out of bed, get up from a chair, bend over to take clothes out of the drier, try to read label on the prescription bottle, 'Is that one pill every four-hours, or four pills every hour?' Not to mention having to lower ourselves on the toilet-seat because we threw our back out putting on our underwear (wonder if the towel rack will support me if I use it to pull myself up from the toilet when I'm finished). Needing help getting in the bathtub, then, being left alone with our dignity barely intact, we have to yell for help because we've accidentally lathered up our head with flea and tick shampoo (I love you Cathy). If I'm rickety at 51, wonder what I'll be like at 75, if I'm not already taking a dirt-nap that is lol

oh, and after your early twenties everybody starts slowing down, very gradually

I've been thinking along those line too. And yeah, my kids are gonna take care of me. I told them when they were younger and at home, 'Get a good education, you're going to need a good job so you can afford the things you want out of life, nice car, nice home, a little in the bank', Did they listen? No, I had to throw two of them out of the house on three different occasions. Well, I took care of them, so I'll be bunking up with them. Hope they have plenty of bibs on hand cause I'm gonna be a drooler. My kids love their mama, I think they'll take care of me lol. If they do stick me in a home, I hope my mind is gone so I can live in the parts of my past that were nice.

Now that would really tick me off. I would have to have a lot of prayer to be able to overcome my anger and bitterness at that type of situation. I can't recall anyone that has ever had a spinal injury that did not need on-going medical treatment throughout their life in some form or another, even if was just from a chiropractor. You're 62, willing to work; when so many people these days want to lay around and do nothing. You are one of these people that would be worth the investment to get you back on your feet. We don't have the funds to help our own, but we have plenty to send aid to countries that hate our guts. I have to get off of this or blow a gasket. My heart goes out to you, really.

Always the spine, I told my cousin the other day (she has major spinal problems due to a work accident many years ago) The spine looks like such a sturdy and strong structure, but it really is a fragile piece of architecture. I have been very fortunate, I have some tweaking in my back from time to time. A little nerve pinch here and there, but nothing that isn't normal for my age I suppose. I can't imagine not being able to do what I do around here due to a back injury. I can take about three days of being out of commission, then I turn into a big horses butt.

And then some fool invented glasses, that way we would be sure to see ourselves more clearly as everything heads south, with the exception of the parts we have to be have removed, gall bladder, cataracts, bone spurs... What is weird to me is when I look in the mirror, appearance wise, I don't feel mentally (with the exception of the memory loss of course, that too goes with the aging process) and emotionally the way I look. I guess my mind doesn't feel like my body (the little bit of mind I have left). Yeah, it sucks.

According to your profile you're 39. To be honest, I hated my 40s. It was like I was too young to be old, and too old to be young. I guess our 40s has its own benefits, it gives us ten years to get ready for that downward roll. I just hope to do it with a little more grace then I have so far lol.

'Idiotic idealism', isn't that another way of saying 'Ignorance is bliss'? Yeah, the weight thing, you'll be surprised to find out that fat can move. This month it's all in your stomach. You lose five pounds, gain back ten, and it relocates to your butt. Nice thing is, when it's in your trunk, you don't have to look at it. Never fear, next time you lose and gain it'll be in your thighs, arms, or hanging under your chin. We won't go into how fast those dratted gray-hairs can multiply (like rabbits).

I do a little pondering too. I sometimes think about the time I was at my grandmothers, it was my 20th birthday and I wandered down to her house to visit. My dad came in with a birthday cake, it was white with yellow trim. I remember that so clearly. I think to myself, when that much time goes by again (and it seems like it flew) I'll be 81-years-old, if I'm alive at all. When I turned 30, my cousin came to my house with a birthday cake, I think she baked it herself. I remember clearly what I was waring, where I was sitting when Cathy and her boyfriend came through the door with the cake and some pins about growing older. Is it my imagination, or did the sun seem to shine brighter back then?