Elderly

Turned 70 in July and I don't care what I'm called, just delighted to still be here and in reasonable health.
As my (four years older) brother said on my birthday, "Every day now is a bonus" and how right he is.
Just live as much as you can for as long as you can, that's all there is to it.

I'm 77 and certainly look elderly when I see myself in the mirror first thing in the morning, but after washing and styling my hair and sticking a bit of makeup on, then I feel I look like a spring chicken again. (Or am I kidding myself?)

Yes Hetty58 I believe you are right.

I have to say though that two friends of mine, vegetarian for 30 years, both keen cyclists and fairly positive did not fare so well either.

He had a stroke at 62 and spent the next 12 years in a rest home. She got cancer at 74, had treatment and was cleared and then told that the very medication the hospital had used had caused a new condition which killed her within a few months. There's no accounting for things like this, is there?

I am so sorry your poor husband was attacked by that insidious disease, what a tragedy for you both.

BradfordLass, the difference is often explained by good diet, exercise, immunity, genetics and positive thinking. All that must help but mainly, it seems, life chances are just a lottery. Some of us are lucky, some not, that's all.

My dear husband was as fit as a fiddle, cycled eight miles to work and back etc. but was suddenly struck down by leukemia and died at 52. I was the 'unfit' one, yet on I go.

I have just spent the past 24 hours on vigil by the bedside of a dying friend. He is 18 months older than me and looks 100.

He is undoubtedly elderly, whereas I was able to sit on an extremely uncomfortable chair, wide awake from 3pm yesterday to 9am this morning.
Of course I had already been awake 9 hours before called to the hospital.

And I will not be sleeping for many hours yet.

What quirk of fate or genes makes two people of similar age, so very different in constitution? One quite definitely elderly and one with (apparently) the constitution of an ox

Last year I broke my hip after falling off my high heels!
In hospital I had a visit from the doc specialising in 'medicine for the elderly'. She was pleasant, chatty and not at all patronising.
When visited by a charming young physio he said I'd make an excellent recovery because I was 'young and fit'. I pointed out that, at 70, I did not feel so right then. He replied that it was more about attitude and general health and was quite sure that I'd be ok to take the DGC to Disneyland Paris 6 weeks later.
He was right, hence my comment upthread!

At 17 or so my dd1 used to say there wasn't much point in living past 25 - after that you were past it!
She'll be 43 next birthday.

When in her 80s, dh's old aunt used to refer to her bridge-addict circle, all of similar age, as 'the girls'.
Dh used to find it funny, but I don't know what else she was ever going to call them - not 'the old bridge-bags' anyway.

Surely "elderly" means "like an elder". And in many cultures an elder is a wise person, respected and often running things in a community - a leader or senior figure according to the definition. That's the kind of elderly that I aspire to be!

On 'The Archers' the other day, one of the younger characters said to another of her father, 'He's just obsessing about being old on Saturday which is his 60th birthday.'

60! Old! I am 62 and 63 in a month. I walk five miles a day and can skip round like a bunny. It was quite a shock to hear of 60 as being regarded as old these days.

I remember my mother dreading her 40th birthday as being akin to life being over but she was still a lively, handsome woman. And 60 is surely the new 40 these days?

My Mom is elderly at 97, I am not at 66 but feel like it at the moment due to a herniated disc! Can't get up if I kneel down and hobble like someone older than my Mom who incidentally has no aches and pains!

Elderly is always about ten years older than me at any given age (since the menopause, anyway). So right now, it starts at 82...

Annodomini ....I love the idea of ‘elders’...very fitting. I was told as a child to ‘respect your elders’ ...it works for me!

I’m 68....I swim three times per week...walk three miles a day and use my bike as often as I can( no car).... sometimes my arthritis makes me feel awful and I have to ‘give in’ to it! those days I feel elderly! Usually though I’m up at 5.30... swimming at 7... and sorting grandkids out 3 days a week.The knack is knowing when to be elderly and ‘give in’ to needing to rest....all other times just get on with it!

I know people half my age who are elderly, and others ten years older than me who are not. Age is a state of mind. I noticed a patronising tone creeping into some peoples’ voices when I had my hip replacement and was using a walking-stick. Now that I am walking normally again that attitude seems to have changed.
At eighty I don’t really think of myself as elderly, and wouldn’t dream of joining a Pensioners’ club. I still enjoy life, drive, and am pretty active. My main thought about getting old is to wonder how much longer I can face the mind (and bum) numbing annual flight to visit my family members in Australia. Thoughts of mortality, and how much longer I have, creep in occasionally. A lot of my friends and relations have died in recent years, which gives pause for thought. However, I’m lucky to have good health, so onward and upward.

The only time I get irritated by the term elderly, is on drug packaging where they give the dosage for various age groups and it says 'Adults and the elderly'. I know that older people don't always need the same dosage as younger adults, but there has to be a better way of phrasing it. I take exception to the implication that we are no longer adults when we pass a certain age.
Mind you, I am 72 and the family are still asking me when I'm going to grow up!

I was 57 when my very elderly neighbour referred to me as ‘elderly! I soon put her right on that one!
Now I’m 76, physically I’m flagging slightly especially since my not-very-successful knee replacement, but mentally, I still feel like a teenager! I don’t look my age, however and would rather die than have a curly perm and wear beige!
I went to my keep-fit class this afternoon and slept for an hour and a half afterwards!

It would be good to live in a society where 'elders' were respected. When a Maori tourist bus driver in New Zealand referred to my sister and me as 'the elder ladies' we took it as an honourable title and were not in the least offended.

I think feeling and looking elderly is all to do with your health. Obviously well people look and feel younger whilst those unfortunate enough to be in ill health tend to look and feel much older .

My late grandma was in excellent health well into her 90’s and looked brilliant for her age whereas my poor mum (her daughter) looked much older than 73 (when she died) as she had been seriously ill for many years and was very frail.

Like being described as an elderly prima gravida at 27 and expecting my first baby

Ollie, like it or not they are. I have no time for people pretending clearly calculable facts aren't true - and as I am old but not elderly, if I run, I run at a reasonable speed, probably as fast if not faster than most of them.

10 years ago, aged 58 an estate agent rang a landlady to say he had prospective tenants. Don't worry he reassured her, they are an elderly respectable couple! My husband was 54! We are still in the flat. I had a broken ankle, so may have looked a bit shaky. Now go to tai chi, walk, 7,500 steps as recommended for over 65s and OH did 22,000 steps today. If I wake up feeling rough, I do the necessary chores and cook etc. If feeling good, I get out there to live life to the full. Swam every day last week. I always accept a seat on the tube as the politeness is so appreciated and a sit down after a busy day shopping perhaps with lunch and a glass of vino requires an unexpected sit down.

I am 72 next month and Mr B is a few months younger, tomboy. Neither of us consider ourselves elderly, just old at times. We are both very active with him doing fell runs and both of us cycling (non electric bikes) two or three times a week.

Its the aches and pains in the morning and forgetting this that and the other that makes us feel old but elderly, no.

Wonder if anybody wants to tell Meryl Streep, Olivia Newton-John, Samuel L Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Joel, Roger Taylor (Queen Drummer), Ivana Trump, Noel Edmonds, Gloria Gaynor or Lulu that they are 'old'.

If you want to try, I suggest that you start running NOW!

'elderly' describes a way of being old, usually those who are beginning to need help and support.

If we assume a life expectancy of 90, and divide it by three, you are young until you are 30, middleaged until you are 60 and old thereafter. It is not a description of how you feel, what you look like or what other people think of you. Just a statement about whereabouts you ccour on the timeline of life. I am 76 I am old, statement of fact. Elderly, that is descriptive of what I could be but I am not.

I will be 65 next month and I certainly don't consider myself to be elderly
I am somewhat in agreement with Gonegirl it really is a privilege to grow old, so many don't

Yesterday my DD said that we were spending too much money on holidays and should be saving for out nursing homes! The cheek of it! She obviously thinks we're elderly! I'm 64 & DH is 68 and here's me thinking we were still cool