When I was thirteen or thereabouts , I thought my grandmothers were ancient. In reality one was barely sixty and the other just past it, but they had already donned old age like a cloak. Both wore the flowered house dress with apron and for dress the black crepe with rhinestone buttons. Both knitted, both lived with daughters and both had very limited social lives. It was not because they unmotivated or anti social, it was ,I think, that this was the role society had for them.

At twenty My mother who was just in her fifties seemed not ancient but old. She worked, played bridge, attended church and was much more active than either of my grandmothers. She traveled back East to see family and cared for my father whose diabetes was getting the best of him. Her image of herself was definitely younger than my grandmothers’ at that age.

Now I am in the age range and I wonder did they seem old because of my younger self classifying them that way or was it society. I do not consider myself old. I still walk with a broad confident step not the shuffling of age. I still work. I travel and socialize. I most assuredly do not dress in print house dresses or black crepe. In fact today, I am sporting coral jeans and a Dr. Who tee shirt. So what the heck is old ?

Attitude makes us old. Acceptance makes us old. Explanation? Ok. Here goes. We are old not matter the calendar or physical state when we become set in our ways and unwilling to keep an open mind to new ideas and new things that life give us. We are old when we accept the fact that the calendar rules us. Sixty? Time to creak and moan and so we creak and moan. We make ourselves old when we are not involved in life and all the surprises it throws at us. We are old when we refuse to adapt to circumstances and seek what is good even in the bad moments.

So do I think I am old. The calendar might say so but my mind and spirit is still learning, still adapting. So I am young and damn it I intend to stay that way until the last breath I breathe.