I am reasonably certain that there is no age range or stage of life that is universally “the best years of your life.” It varies enormously from person to person.
The grass is greener on the… side where we water it.
I’m 61 and feel good for my age, although I had a recent health scare that I’ve fortunately had it dealt with and I’m working on it now too. Anyway it’s cool to be this age, even with its increasing limitations. Yeah, more pain and discomfort, yadda yadda, but still I think it’s cool.
Oh and I recently celebrated turning 60 by getting my first tattoo!
Woo-hoo!
Ain’t that the truth!
A couple of years back my brother and I attended a Boston concert (love that 70s rock music!) and we marveled at all the other people and how old they looked!
Yeah. You have to take the good with the bad. Now is great, I have a loving wife of 26 years and enough money.
When I was in my early 20’s I had neither. BUT I’ll never forget the fun we had. Setting up a volleyball net in a local park where just fantastic days. It was easier somehow then. Grab a case of beer, call a couple of friends, and you’re set to go.
Today, I have to look at my calendar. Or I just know. “Um, I have to much to do”. But, I did call my best friend and we are going to lunch.
Constantly multi-tasking. Never bored, but less spur-of-the-moment. Many, many balls in the air.
What I have to keep reminding myself is to not get ahead of myself. Some things need to be done before others. You learn that with age. Otherwise 3 tasks become 6.
I’m with Si_Amigo on this.I feel like my 20s were the golden years. All the rights and privileges of adulthood but few of the responsibilities yet. With the vigor and vitality of youth.
Count me as another surprised and concerned to hear this. Best wishes from me as well, @Qadgop_the_Mercotan .
I’ll add my best wishes to @Qadgop_the_Mercotan. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this at all.
Today is my father’s 91st birthday. As he says, inside every old person is a young person, wondering what the hell happened!
As his child who appears to have inherited his genes of longevity (but who knows?) and doing reasonably well in my mid 60s, I hope I’ll do as well at his age as he is doing. I think. Sometimes I wonder if a quick and thorough heart attack before one becomes too aged isn’t the best way to go.
Another voice of wishing you a smooth course. FWIW my MIL is on cancer number five …
You using the word “daunting” though is of concern …
To the subject of the OP - I am 63. No plans to retire but surprised my partners when I mentioned the possibility of maybe working a bit less intensely within several years.
My perspective is that age is defined relative to me: “young” is younger than me and “old” is older than me. I am not old, there’s just lots more young folk around! My curls abandoned ship decades ago with my wife mourning their departure more than me.
Physically I feel as good as ever. Motivated by @Dr_Paprika’s weightlifting thread I have re-upped my fitness game, have a resting pulse in the low 40s, and feel I could still train up for a half iron man again if I wanted to. I plan on aging slowly and well, functioning fully until I one day suddenly do not. A man has dreams.
Emotionally it’s the stress and worry of spousal chronic and recurring illnesses that elevate my cortisol. Not fair to her that she gets all the bad cards dealt from the health deck to our partnership.
You’re giving me too much credit for your decision to exercise more. But it’s a good decision.
I believe that Qadgop is going to be making syrup for many more years yet.
I keep wondering how growing old happened so damned fast. It feels as if the 90s and Y2K was just a few years back.
Yeah. Been there, done that.
Lots of difficulties for her and one feels guilty somehow for riding so much more lightly in that saddle. The good news is how much more energy that disparity affords you to devote to making her life all it can be for her despite her challenges.
Good luck to you both!
Unfortunate folk in their 60s are bemoaning so much. Doubt it will get better in your 70s or 80 (if you make it.)
Wife and I are 61-62. No real complaints. Just booked a ski trip for next month - we’ll see how that goes. We’ve got all the time to do what we want, and the money to be comfortable doing it. Sure - aches and pains, we feel invisible in our community and irrelevant to much of society, but that doesn’t bother us too much.
Can be a tad daunting looking forward and figuring 20 years or so is all we can really expect, but OTOH, 20 years is a pretty long time.
Had my hip replaced 3 years ago. It went well. But since I was going to need to kind of take it easy for a while I hired a guy to plow my drive. I normally do that.
I had to pull out the 30 something plow driver that I hired with my own plow truck 3-4 times. I was just mobile at that point. I could fire up my truck and hook it up.
The plow guy I hired, did not ask to renew the contract.
“When you don’t get what you want, you get experience”.
I’ve mentioned it in a few threads where I felt it was relevant to the discussion, but that’s it. I’ve not shared a ton of details. Briefly, a Gleason 9 (tends to be aggressive) prostatic adenocarcinoma, probably localized (but fancy PET scan study picked up a ‘weird’ spot in my sternum that needs monitoring despite sternal CT and MRI showing it to probably be a benign thingy), being treated with radiation (ugh) and hormone therapy (tenfold ugh). I could have opted for radical prostatectomy but survival rate for my age group is just as good for rad/hormone rx, so why go thru major surgery and a year or more of incontinence?
I turned 70 last year. Not to scare the OP, but at 64 is about when my health problems started to appear. (I like to tell people that my warranty expired.) Two heart stents, fatty liver disease, anemia apparently related to stomach bleeders, and most recently tachycardia and A-fib. The last seems to have responded to an ablation treatment, but since the anemia seems to be acerbated by the blood thinner prescribed for the A-fib my cardiologist has referred me to another doctor for possible alternative treatment.
Other than that, I;m doing fine.
I’m 70. Just got home from playing music with my buddies for four hours.
Tomorrow I’m playing at another jam for 3 hours. Yesterday I did my monthly gig at the old folks* home.
Then on Monday I punch back in for my editing gig with the local weekly newspaper.
Yes I ache all over. Yes I’ve had two back surgeries. But guess what, I don’t have to stand at the bus stop any more in the rain and snow to go downtown and punch a clock every day.
So I do consider these my golden years, and I’m hoping for many more
*Old Folks=those of my age who live in a nursing facility. I always tell them, save me a spot, I’ll be along some day.
Best wishes, @Qadgop_the_Mercotan.
I turned 86 a couple weeks ago and feel old old. Just 5 years ago, I felt entirely comfortable walking 4 miles to my office (as a prof. emeritus, I am entitled to office space). But by 4 years ago I no longer could. I was also entirely comfortable with going down 80 steps to the Metro (there was an escalator going up) although I used a railing. Now I can go down only by hanging on to the railing with both hands and haven’t done it since the pandemic hit. One eye was ruined in a botched cataract operation (but the other is better than it ever was) and I can now drive without glasses (although my licence is still restricted). Fortunately, there are no money worries and I have a wealthy son to bail me out if inflation were to cause serious problems, since my pension is fixed, if quite generous. But if I had to choose a metallic metaphor, I would call these the leaden years.
Fingers crossed for the benign thingy. 
I endorse this terminology.
Prayers and blessings to you, @Qadgop_the_Mercotan .
You know, Mr. Legend and I worried for most of our adult lives because we didn’t think we had enough time (or spare cash) to find any kind of retirement. So when we realized we had, through years of hard work and saving - and especially some really good fortune, we were going to be able to actually retire in our 60’s, we were really looking forward to it! Unfortunately, it somehow slipped our minds that money wasn’t the only thing to worry about, so now we’re looking at spending that retirement money on healthcare and accessories rather than world travel. It does best worrying about both money and health, though.
I was rear-ended by a woman at an intersection. When telling the story later, I described her as an old lady.
I then instantly remembered that, when she and I exchanged info at the scene, her driver’s license indicated that she was four years younger than me.
mmm