when are you considered old?

how do you know what year you turn old? is it the year you spend most of the time looking for your glasses...and usually find them on the top of your head? is it the year you not only lose the car keys but can't remember where you left the car? or does old look like an eighty-five year old woman on her way to paris for the fifth time?

you can join the senior citizen's center when you're fifty-five...but you can't get social security until you are sixty-two or sixty-five...so how do you know for sure when you are old?

"growing old is something we all think about...for some of us...those thoughts come more frequently...it's easy to think you're eternally young if you're slim and trim...with a head full of hair..but when those laugh lines around your eyes turn into crevasses and the hair on your head turns silver...then we're forced to face the reality that were not teenagers anymore" ~ bernie sheahan

general douglas macarthur once said "nobody grows old by merely living a number of years...people grow old only by deserting their ideas...you are as young as your self-confidence...as old as your despair..."

i worked for several years with seniors in various processes of aging...i think there are three very defined clues that point to a person's being old...

old is when you lose your dream...that could be at age eighty...or age fifty...or age thirty-nine...or any age at all...hopes and dreams for a bright future are what keep people young and vibrant...i know of a man who reroofed his house when he was ninety-seven...by himself...and wondered about the guarantee on the materials he used...i know of a couple who remodeled their home when they were eighty-five and shopped to get a carpet with a long-wear finish...

old is when you start turning in on yourself...when your world shrinks inward...when your own stories or daily health report takes up most of your conversation...young people...at any age...are focused outward...on what's going on around town...on the news...what's happening tomorrow...and next door...and in japan...when you're old...you let your world shrink until it is only the size of you...

old is when you look backward more than you look forward...the "good old days" are gone...if they ever existed at all...the "way things used to be" is not the way things are now...thank goodness...yes...at one time...you had to cook three meals a day on a wood-burning stove...and the only air conditioning in the home was the breeze that blew through the cracks between the floorboards...i am glad those good old days are gone forever...i don't know if i would have survived...look at how good things are now...what a great time to be alive...look forward to the best that is yet to be...

stay alive...on a moment-to-moment day-to-day basis...embrace life...accept challenges...learn something new...change...and grow...come to terms with the person you are now...whether pleasant or unpleasant...active or reflective...no matter the number of years you have lived...

now where did i put those reading glasses?