HOW TO STAY YOUNG

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

 

I hope to never move to a “Senior Community” or even worse an assisted living home.  There is a lot to be said for a Senior/Retirement community, and if need be, assisted living beats the heck out of being left alone and vulnerable.

My objection to both these living arrangements is there are too many old people in these venues.  Mind you, I love old people.  I am an old people myself; it is just that hanging with old people makes you...well...old!

The way to stay young is to hang around young people. 

I became a father for the fourth time when I was 52.  When I was with my son, and other young fathers, I felt younger than 52.  Because I had a young child, the actual young people treated me as if I was also young.  It helps to feel young if people treat you as if you actually are young.

As my young son grew, I was forced to do young things.  Throw a ball, catch a ball, coach youth teams, and even run from time to time.

When I was 60, I associated not with other 60 year olds, but with other parents of 8 year olds.  Occasionally I may have been referred to as “The Old Fart,” but I was still mostly one of the younger crowd.  Talk was of little league, fractions, grade school, teacher conferences, you know…young stuff.  I felt young and almost spry.

When my oldest brother was ill, I paid a visit to him in North Carolina.  I went to his Granddaughter’s music recital and a party afterwards.  I found myself mingling with parents of young children, parents the same age as my crowd back in Jersey, only now I was introduced as Grandpa’s brother.  I was treated by these young people like a Grandpa, like an old person. 

I immediately felt old.

By the time I went back to Jersey, I had arthritis in my hip, I gained ten pounds, and what hair I had was graying around the edges.

I recovered a little, but when my son was taken off to Massachusetts because Jersey Judges suck, I lost my youth attachment.  When he does visit, he is a teenager now and teens will always make you age. 

Old people and teenagers are the fountain of elderly.

The only thing that could make me feel older is if on my next birthday I am told patronizingly that I am 70 years YOUNG.  Nothing says they just dropped the landing gear on your airplane of life then to be told you are xx years YOUNG!

Anyway, the youth thing was a good run while it lasted.  I gotta stop writing now; it’s time for my nap.