Getting old. How has it affected your sense of who you are?

mark in place

I find that Im not the high jumper I used to be. I suspect that my personal gravity has taken a major positive shift wrt to my own Personal Gravitational Constant.

Ive given this much thought so anybody disagreeing with me can pound a yard or two.

Sort of blah
No offense

Wide-Area Network

https://www.bing.com/search?q=wan&go=Submit&qs=n&form=QBLH&pq=wan&sc=8-3&sp=-1&sk=&cvid=A7012BE78CD8491F8923BDB1953D719E

Un huh. We've got some real strong gravity around here, too.

This was a cool read.

http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/wellbeing/a-brain-researcher-discovers-the-fountain-of-youth-in-a-93-year-old?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Social&utm_term=632644019&utm_campaign=Rodale's%20Organic%20Life

I think some of the things Roberta said have changed the general dynamic of who we are in old age. Money is definitely a major concern suddenly. I could be wrong, but I don't think financial survival is so vitally crushing when you are in a partnership like a marriage or committed relationship where money is shared.

I remember when the primary dialogue between my mother and I went from normal day-to-day stuff to insurance issues, Social Security reductions, the cost of this and that. So, unless you're wealthy, I think this is universal. She never talked about these things until my dad died.

I think when you're in a partnership, you relax a bit because there are two of you making sure you have what you need. If you're alone -- and increasingly in older age, we are -- the morass of bureaucracy, the cataclysmic costs of accidents or health crises, just the cost to live as an older person is a serious concern. I find myself beginning to act and feel differently about money the same way my mother did -- back when I thought she was becoming a different person.

Not attractive.

______________________________________________

To the larger topic:

Yesterday, I was hiking. Having a wonderful time. You might say my path diverged in the wood because of my age...

First of all, because of wildly reduced visual acuity, I found myself two steps from a snake bite. I used to pride myself on hyper-awareness as a hiker - partially to avoid dangers and also to really drink in the beauty, the little camouflaged animals. Like an oaf, I trod right up on a four foot long black snake, who had arranged his lovely sleek body into a serpentine shape, anticipating our meeting. His head was tilted toward me, waiting.

I apologized for my stupidity and went back to the trail, where old people who can't see belong, rather than roughing it on the creek bank.

I came to the old stone water pump - beautiful ruin on the bank of the lake that looked like a rook on a chess board. Got a few pictures and my choices were to scale up a steep, dusty incline and follow the path around the lake (old me would have been up in a second, damn the torpedos), but old me stopped, judging my ability to come back down that incline without falling.

I did go because I'm hard-headed, but the family that had stopped at the water pump for photos seemed overly concerned upon my quite slow and tedious descent thirty minutes later.

They weren't alone in their concern.

Both bothered me.

You're very kind. Thank you. Your comment resonated personally as well.

I like myself a lot more.

I used to be the disappointing guy who should have done better. My sense
was that this was someone who squandered time, money and talent. This
was a guy who let people down.

Now I'm OK with myself. Could've done better, but could've done far worse.
I no longer feel that I should be striving so hard. That race is over and I am
settling into a jog.

This is a very difficult question to answer and I really have to think and dive deep down into myself.
First of all - I am extremely lucky to have no real problems which occurs in old age.
I still participate in life, have a big house and garden and summer cabin to care for.
I enjoy teaching now and then on more or less regular basis.
I have always enjoyed colour combinations, but in old age I am so much more concerned about things have to match. I really like to set a table where things look very harmonious. I like embroidery and I mix colours in abstract patterns I create myself.
Also dressing I like to think about colours and put on descreete make up.
A few years ago I had some sad and also difficult experiences in life, but took it for what it was.
Tradegies happen and one has to accept them. My doctor wanted me to get therapy because of the way he thought I took things were not good for me and how I have been handling things in life - by swolllowing.
I took some therapy and then a few hours music therapy.
I myself did not notice much difference except maybe I felt lighter and life was easier.
Some very good friend of mine, whom I see once a year told me that I now am that person I used to be when we were young.
Another young person told me that the way I am now is the way she imagen I was in my youth. I told my daughter and she thinks the same.
Laughing and enjoying life, being with friends there is still so much to enjoy.
Reading and meditate. On the other hand I often feel sad about how things have develope in the world the last few years - it is so full of hate and intolerance. A few years ago we were much more polite and not so aggresive as today.

Fascinating, Saab. Thank you.

Lovely outcome! I would be fascinated to hear what you felt happened in therapy to make a difference for you?

So...less judgmental, more accepting? Do you know how you got there?

Yes...definitely an increased sense of financial frailty and less physical ability.

I agree that making it uncoupled is often financially and emotionally harder

Sounds as though you are really grieving for old you.....I'd be interested to find out whether that is temporary.

I'm 53. Well, 53 and a half, almost, no, 53 and a quarter.

I feel as if my whole life until now, was finding, searching but with certain knowledge of things or feelings that I could never shake belief of. Forever, the work-a-holic but really no direction, just doing and attempting to be good at it, for the most part I feel proud of the achievements, yet sad that the real passions in life, the real things that matter, the real me as a creator, is only now surfacing.

I find that I am still that work-a-holic and if honest, too much. I've taken on too much, I'm 53... One, to survive, must do, why does the Government make us work so hard to pay bills. Two, to let go of some of that and finally let others in my world of work, to do some of that work, the work that I have no passion for but must survive. And, then I found a passion, a real passion, one that I love doing and added that into my World and now I find whilst I love that it's a lot of work too, I'm still a work-a-holic, yet, finally I have found what I like to do, to make a living, just not there yet to let go of everything else and if I was ? Then, I'd enjoy this other new found side of me, smelling the roses, walking amongst the trees, planting more plants, veg, herbs, staring at the water, the park.

I feel that I've found direction and therefore, inner piece, accepting that I'm getting older on the outside, yet growing my hair to the bottom literally, before the acceptance that, that can't stay like that forever.

I've finally found all that passion that has been inside and used in wrong directions yet I'm tired.

Both my partner and I have injuries. Those injuries are horrid in winter.

Both of us, feel old. Yet, 36. Inside.

I think we are heading in the right direction, moved to the Country, dabble now with passions with work, just need to keep going, so one day, one day, we can let go and just potter with the passions and keep warm and feel alive.

We are both work-a-holics, yet party at least once a week together, well listen to music, have a drink, sit and smell the roses, talk ****, laugh.

I wait for those days.

It's strange that you find you, when you are older and become happy within yourself.

We can't help injuries, age, we can make a management decision to work out how to love things in life, where before they were there and we didn't see them.

The transition is still in progress. I'll definitely keep you posted.

Meanwhile, this is a fabulous thread, and there have been wonderful contributions!

What does this mean?

Good. I didn't want to be the one to ask.

Ditto, I didn't want to ask either. Sounds new agey to me.

Meditation x

Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one's attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment,which can be developed through the practice of meditation and other training.

Large population-based research studies have indicated that the practice of mindfulness is strongly correlated with well-being and perceived health.

I would say it is a fancy word for just concentrating in something which really takes your time and you put your soul and mind in.
For many women who worked hard on the fields relxing with knitting complicated patterns must have been mindfulness.
Patchwork is the same.
Painting or "coloring boooks" for grown ups.
For men it was - I am sure also today - fishing, working with something in the garage.
It is not your body it is your soul/mind which are important.

There is a line from a very bad movie called "Noah". It's the one with George Clooney. The line states that, "Some dreams can't be unbroken." That is one profundity I cannot forget. Candlelight8