A year ago, when I saw that the United Nations had designated a world-wide day of celebrations for the older persons in our societies I initially smiled, but then I found myself asking the question – what happens during the other 364 days? Do we still continue to celebrate the wonderful elders in our communities, or do we conveniently forget them as we go about our daily existence? Continue reading “Celebrating The International Day of the Older Person”
Category: Ageing
Who or what determines that we are ‘old’?
I was in the middle of a conversation with a lovely young man the other day when he said something that had me burst out laughing – not at him but his comment. He had said that he often feels that he’s too old to change. My laughter was at the fact that he is in his 40’s and I am about to head out of my sixties so in that instant his comment had me asking the question – if he’s too old what does that make me?
We did continue the conversation for a while as he expanded on what he was actually meaning, that he can’t be bothered, and while he did, I had another question arise – who or what determines that we are old and what does old really mean? Continue reading “Who or what determines that we are ‘old’?”
Don’t judge this ‘ageing book’ by its slightly worn cover!
The saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ has been a saying which I have always found so wise and so true, and that in judging another by what they look like on the outside or how they are behaving, we are often missing out on the truth of what is ‘written’ on the pages within. And now as I am ageing and my ‘cover’ is becoming a little more worn by the year, this saying has taken on a whole new significance.
The pattern of judging another is a horrible one and a pattern that I have been choosing to remove from my life for some time now, as I have come to see it as very harmful for all concerned. Sadly, it is a pattern which I have slipped into over the years, often without realising that I was doing so. It was like the judgmental thought was there before I had even thought about it – that used to puzzle me; how did it appear so quickly? Continue reading “Don’t judge this ‘ageing book’ by its slightly worn cover!”
The True Beauty of an Ageing Woman
I got an opportunity the other day to stop and deeply consider what the true beauty of an ageing woman is; and the opportunity came from a Facebook post. It was a photo of two seemingly very old women with their weather-beaten skin deeply etched with decades of lines and wrinkles, and with a distinct absence of teeth, but their faces were alive from their smiles and their laughter. The caption read something like: – “We were young and beautiful but now we are just beautiful”. Their joy-filled smiles certainly had me smiling as I looked carefully at what I was seeing and allowed these words to sink in. Continue reading “The True Beauty of an Ageing Woman”
Pondering on Ageing
Coming close to my 69th birthday I have been pondering on ageing and my relationship to it, and at times wondering how I actually made it to this age; where has the time gone? In fact, sometimes I look at this number and cannot relate it to the person I am. But one thing is for sure, I am not going to allow myself to be defined by a number, which is actually 69 cycles around the sun and not the straight line we have been led to believe it is.
I can remember my mother saying to me many years ago, when she was in her 80’s, that inside she didn’t feel any different than she always had, but that so much had changed on the outside, and that I can now relate to; the wrinkles, the sags, the ‘age’ spots and so on. And of course, there is the slowing down of the physical body and the aches and pains that can come with this.
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