I celebrated my 78th birthday last month and had to own up to an inescapable fact – I am not growing old gracefully, at least, not in the way that I think most people define that term.
One of the key things in all I’ve read about ‘growing old gracefully’ is the acceptance of aging as a natural fact of life. I’ve got that part down pat – I think – but based on the reactions I get from the people I meet, that’s about all.
My hair and beard are white. Check. But, my mustache insists on growing in a mixture of black and white kind of like Wolverine of the X-Men. In 2013, I fell and broke my right femur. It was a small crack and it hurt like the dickens, but the fracture didn’t displace, didn’t show up on an ER X-ray that day and I walked around with this four-inch crack in my hip for six weeks. Finally went in to see why it still hurt and they found it with an MRI.
My neighbors and relatives recommended a hip replacement, but I opted for three pins to hold the bones in place until they healed. The only fallout from that: my doctor said stop jogging and walk instead. Thanks to the U.S. Army of the 1970s and its jogging craze, I was addicted to running, but also had little cartilage left in either knee, so this turned out to be a net positive.
Walking doesn’t put as much stress on the knees, and since losing
weight and getting below two hundred pounds two years ago, I no longer have pain in my knees. I now work two to four miles a day and have never felt better.
I mentioned the white hair, right? Snow white, but thick, and I’m constantly greeted with expressions of awe that someone my age still has a full, rich head of hair. Got it from my mother I suppose. Hers was thick and white too, but no one knew the latter because she dyed it regularly. When she died after a long stay in the hospital, the gray was beginning to show. The funeral home director, an old family friend, informed me that she’d made sure my mother’s hair was dyed the way she liked it, and it was. Not a gray strand in sight.
On more than one occasion I’ve had middle-aged people – mainly women – come up to me and comment on the thick fullness of my snow-white hair. All I can think of to say in situations like that is ‘thanks.’
Another point of contention between me and relatives, friends, and even some colleagues is the fact that I work six or seven days a week most weeks, taking a day off to just chill once or twice a month. Their argument is that at my age I should have slid into a comfortable retirement, enjoying my golden years and my grandchildren. I try to tell them that what I do is enjoy my golden years. I don’t work for financial reasons, don’t have to work at all insofar as money’s concerned.
I work because I love what I do, I’m good at it, and it is my concept of ‘enjoying my golden years.’ And, by that, I don’t mean the money. I mean the shining joy I get when I get a message from someone who has
read one of my books telling me how much they loved it, or how it changed their lives. To me, that’s worth more than all the gold in Fort Knox.
So, maybe I’m not the graceful elderly retiree that people think I should be, but I’m in good health, I’m stress free, and I’m enjoying every waking moment. At the same time, on occasion, I’m actually making a contribution to the world. I might not be graceful, but I’m darn sure grateful to be where I am. – NWI
