I GROW OLD…I GROW OLD

No one would deny that age can burden us with profound and plentiful losses of health, of people we love, of a home that has been our haven and pride, of a place within a familiar community, of work and status and purposefulness and financial security, of control and choices.

Our bodies notify us of declining strength and beauty. Our senses become less acute; our reflexes slow. We have poorer concentration, less efficiency in processing new information and lapses. ‘What’s her name again? I know it’s a name I know.”

Old age, a number of people point out, is what you’re stuck with if you want a long life. In addition, as an eighty-plus friend observes, more of us are limping through it than dancing through it.

Indeed, students of aging now tend to subdivide old age into the young old (sixty-five to seventy-five), the middle-old (seventy-five to eighty-five ) and the “old-old …(eighty-five to whatever), recognizing that each of these groups has different problems and needs and capabilities. They also recognize that while good health and good friends and good luck and a good income certainly make aging easier to take, it is our attitude toward our losses as much as the nature of our losses which will determine the quality of our old age.

Excerpt from the the book Necessary Losses by Judy Viorst, Chapter 18.