The aging process goes kinda like this -
Youth - free time, growth, mastering what the body can do, flight of thought and whimsy, mobile to the max.
Adulthood - responsibilities, job for most of the daylight house (likely a sedentary one), mortgage, family, managing money and time. Not only has growth stopped, but so has activity. Meals are likely grab-and-go and alcohol content might be high due to need to get some sleep and anti-anxiety properties.
Senior - paying physically for what you did in adulthood (diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, etc), lack of intellectual stimulation, boredom, regret, loneliness, lack of purpose.
When we're in our 20s-50s, we generally put ourselves last. We ignore gaining pounds, lack of mobility, backaches. We're still running on the assumption we can eat what we want and not exercise and never had to pay for that in our youth. But, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight are saying otherwise.
In fact, in adulthood, it's easy to forget who we are. We might have taken on a job because it was easy or we mastered the routine, but there is no passion in it. We are slaves to mortgages, car payments, kids' college funds, etc. We get on a treadmill of routine that we can't get off of or the house of cards crumbles.
As seniors, we may be physically paying for stress and neglect in our adult years, but we also have some huge physical advantages. It's not all deterioration to the grave. In fact, it's a second youth.
Imagine being able to get proper sleep, taking the time to buy real food that you cook yourself, having open time to play pickle ball or swim in the pool?
What about the stress release? Maybe your mortgage is paid, your kids moved away, and you now own your own time? You take up guitar again or painting? You spend time with friends and the support of community?
Maybe you live out long-held dreams like driving and RV around the Grand Canyon or doing Karaoke every Thursday night? Maybe you get up in the morning and do yoga to keep yourself flexible and balanced, you do meditation outside in the sunlight, or you do a three-day liver cleanse?
When I was 59, I was a caregiver and completely ignored my health. I was also renovating a home. I ate poorly, was up to 220 pounds (5'8"). I felt horrible. I felt pressured, breathless, inflexible, and drowsy.
I quickly dropped 43 pounds in 2 months. The only thing I did was use a dessert plate as a dinner plate. I ate a high-protein/high-fiber diet. I literally donated all the "dinner plates" (American size 11" and restaurant size 12") and got 9" (European dinner plate) size.
We have lost a context in America. Restaurants serve 3-story hamburgers, piles of cheap to produce fries, and portions and salt content, foods fried in seed oils, and sugar, are all the contents to seduce us. We've been taught, without thinking, that burger goes with fries and soda.
Order an appetizer. Have the restaurant box half your meal. Eat very slowly, small bites. I had to do this because with facial paralysis, you bite your lips and can't coordinate. I carried that behavior with me. I literally made a tuna fish sandwich, ate half, realized I had no more room and packed the other half in a damp towel in the fridge for the next day. I began to realize inhaling food, ordering delivery, take-out, drive-thru were with people who didn't care at all that I had a healthy calorie count or salt content. They wanted me to come back. I tested eating a burger without fries. Guess what? I didn't feel overstuffed and drowsy, and satisfied completely by just the burger. I had never questioned this practice before. I looked it up and a double burger at McDonald's is 300 calories. That's a fine meal size.
They were food-pushers, like drug-pushers.
I continued house renovation work and began to make serious changes in my life so I could actually heal the damage my adulthood had done.
From this lesson, I shifted my life into senior space. I sold the house, simplified my life, and pursued the things I was too scared to pursue in my youth. I realized, city life was not going to be a routine that would keep me healthy - between too much noise, convenient foods, lack of activity, stress - it caused my physical breakdown. A natural life, outdoors, with lots of chores is what you see in people who live long and happy lives. We were meant to be active, not to sit and decline.
I figured, at this time in my life, I had nothing to lose except regret.
There is one crowd that accepts the blows of adulthood and neglect and take medicines, focus on their pains, accept they are on their way to the grave, give up pursuing dreams, trying alternatives, changing their lifestyle.
And there is another crowd that accepts that, like other stage of life, a teen accepts driving a car responsibliity, getting a job, schooling, career, mortgage, family, etc. We simply must quit expecting that the 30-something and 40-somethings focus on.
One day, talking to my son about my insane plan to make it as a screenwriter with no job, but an opportunity to try it that - "son, you're in your 30s, married, mortgage, kid, career. I, however, am in my 60s and lots of regrets. I put everyone and everything first. I have nothing to lose at this point. The decisions I make at this time are crazy from your point of view. Just wait until you're in your 60s and you will lift your head up and realize all the things you sacrificed - health, dreams, potential...."
He smiled. He was worried for me from a 30s point of view.
Your senior point of view - that's freedom of adulthood and owning your own potential. You can make your health and happiness the only thing on the plate.
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