I’m around your age and I’ve survived two of those four. I had three (!) eye surgeries last year, and not only am I no longer going blind but I currently enjoy better vision than I ever had before in my life.
Cancer sucks, but a lot more can be done about it than in the past. A lot of people get to use the “cure” word, and even among those we don’t some cancers can be turned in manageable if chronic conditions you might die with rather than of.
So yes, medical things can be frightening, but even a lot of serious ones are much more survivable and can be dealt with these days.
When I started having a bit of trouble getting up and down off the floor I actually made practicing that maneuver part of my regular exercise program. Doing so lets you maintain the muscle-strength and coordination to continue doing it, basically keeping in practice. It won’t work for everyone, but for a lot of people it’s a way to avoid the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” situation, or at least put it off a few more years (or a couple decades, even) than it might otherwise occur.
Keep practicing your balance, also. Stand on one foot some of the time; put your pants on standing up; etc. Do this while something or somebody’s close enough to grab if you have to, if you’re at all unsteady about it; but keep doing it.
And my sister just got told by medical personnel that walking backwards is good for you. She’s apparently having to re-learn how to do so. I find it easy – probably because I often do so while moving hoses in the fields; so I stay in practice.
In general – if you want to be able to keep doing something: try to keep doing it.
I am in the same boat, but am a bit younger than you; I’ll be 58 in a few months, but am in good health. It seems all of my friends and coworkers suffer from health problems of one sort or another, and some have died. Not sure if I simply lucked out, but (AFAIK) I don’t have any health issues; at the risk of humble bragging, I’m at a normal BMI, my BP is normal, I don’t take meds, and I run 5K three to four times a week. (However, I am concerned about my prostate. I think it was last checked ten years ago. A bit TMI, but my urine stream seems to be at a low “pressure.” Need to make a doc appointment, I guess. I need to find a doctor first.)
As for your comments on death, I try not to think about it too much since I have zero control over it, and the idea that I’ll be gone forever is too mind-blowing for me to want to think about. I tend to think about my past, instead, and I dwell on poor decisions and have regrets. Twelve years of Catholic school did a number on me…
I think that dwelling on all the stuff I missed out on by being born so late, after humans had already been around for a couple hundred thousand years, helps me to have perspective on the stuff that’ll happen after I’m dead. IOW: neither of those things matter shit, nor does my dwelling upon them hold my interest for more than a couple of minutes. There is plenty going on in the present; fussing about forever seems silly.
Quoted For Truth. This is why I meet with a personal trainer and make sure to move. I want to be able to keep moving, hopefully without too many aches and pains, as long as possible.
It also helps me to focus on the now. What can I do this moment, today, this week? I listen to music and limit doomscrolling.
My parents (early 80s) can still walk 2 miles. They need some days to fully recover, but they can do it. They no longer walk down to the beach, just to the overlook. They go to the gym 2-3 times a week. Lighter weights than before, and maybe not as long on the exercise bike, but they still go. They are active with their church and they have an active social life. They are still doing things for others, such as cooking meals for housebound friends and unhoused.
But to do that, they have to restrict their activities. They no longer mow the lawn. They no longer wash the windows. They no longer paint the foyer or the exterior. They pay somebody else to do that.
That was me until my cancer diagnosis. Aside from the cancer it is still true (well, I’m taking meds for the cancer problem but you know what I mean). Watching other people go through what I’m going through my conclusion is that the fewer medical problems you have at the same time the better off you are. So keep up the good habits. Should you encounter a major medical problem being otherwise healthy will be in your favor.
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?” - Satchel Paige
At 47, I’m a young ‘un in this group. Since my early 20s, I haven’t felt that I’ve been getting older; time has just moved on. But the lines in my face are getting more pronounced, and I have a slight Frank’s sign on one ear.
But I’m still as active in the gym as ever, and while I have chronic lower back pain I attribute that to old injuries more than aging.
My eyes are going; I’ve needed corrective lenses to see distance for years, but lately I have a hard time reading close up (I’m at that point where I can’t read the bill in restaurants with low lighting)
My current girlfriend is 22 years younger than me; at 25, she has a high sex drive. I manage to keep up, but at this age I have to work to have an orgasm, whereas in my earlier years the fear was that I’d finish too soon. That’s definitely a strange juxtaposition.
My goal is to make it to 2069, and to attend the 100th anniversary of Woodstock. I’d be 91.
Every time I am asked my age, I have to mentally subtract my birth year from the current year. I stopped paying attention because it doesn’t matter very often.
I calculate that I am, using this method, 49 years so far.
When I stop being able to do the mental calculation… then I will be officially old.
I was born in 1953. My older sister was born in 1950. Her birth year makes it incredibly easy to calculate her current age. So on occasion, I have figured her age and subtracted 3 to get my age.
Yes, I am content with my life, it has been wonderful. I didn’t really mature until I was 29, but who does? You are right, it is a bonus and I remind myself everyday of that fact. I don’t overthink it, but I use perspective to cope with any trouble. As you said, I won’t have to deal with the world in 2100, and even the young people at the moment will be either very elderly or dead, too, even a newborn baby will be 75. New generations will have those problems to solve.
Don’t know her age, but I am guessing she is 50 or so. Funny, in past eras, 50 was old person country. But when you have money for the best surgery and clothes, you can look…well maybe late 30s. Hollywood!
My first car was a 68 Cougar (bought in 78) and it was a junker. Now, it would probably be in your garage, being renovated. But as you said, it is tiring, and that job would be very very fatiguing. I have a garden, and love to do the tasks it requires, and I don’t get breathless while working, but everything at our age is a delayed reaction, isn’t it? So, the day after gardening, I will have a sore hip that lasts awhile or need to nap after working out in the yard for a couple of hours. We just don’t recover as we once did.
I’m 77 and I drop 20 years when I’m riding the mcycle - mentally it is brilliant for me.
Accumulating medical issues being fought one at a time getting tiresome after a while and a near miss by the grim reaper thanks to sepsis two weeks ago was startling. I had no idea that it kills more than heart or stroke combined.
Scary but 95% fully recovered and I learned a lot.
I’ve dropped 60 lb over 2 years and that took out a lot risk plus the glutides have other benefits.
I like the the idea I don’t have to think about food when I’m on it…my body just says “I’m full”…no effort on my part.
Not fond of losing some of peers in the same age range including two classmates from kindergarden and one a fthem a first cousin.
That was bit of an existential shock.
Seeing stars and muscians I like age is a bit of a downer.
Knowing I’ve experienced things in my life over 77 years that a large portion of humanity has not …ie Moon Landing, sputnik, Kennedy shot…etc.
History that is live to me is just historical events for the majority…even my kds.
I have long genes …both parents lived to 95 - my dad still driving legally and bright and alert …my mom a happy but healthy vegetable with no awareness of her past or people.
Partner the same with her mum so lately lots of discussion about the next 20 years and how to approach things like DNR…we are mostly in accord.
The sepsis scare ( it was a near miss ) sort of brought it up for more frequent discussion.
Death has no scare for me …it’s over. Being a veg or a conscious but heavily disabled does give me concern.
Would I like to live longer in decent health …sure…I’m a futurist and would love to see what’s coming.
Resigned that I won’t but maybe 20 years is a good goal.
Riding motorcycle til I’m 80 is the current near term goal.
I think of it this way: life is short. I mean, we think of kids as having so much time ahead of them but even a baby just has maybe 4000 weeks remaining.
From day 1 it’s a matter of making the most of what little we have. Some will be thinking where I am going with this, but what I am saying is that in Western culture we put a lot of focus on the young* and older people can have feelings of it being “over” but really we only ever had a sliver of time and we have to continue to find what joy and purpose we can with it.
And no-one knows what comes after. I’m an atheist, but, given that we can’t say why anything exists at all, and we can’t rule out things like the simulation hypothesis, I don’t rule out something after this. I don’t bank on it, but it helps me to not dwell on the finality of it all.
* This was one nice thing about living in China: it’s a culture that really respects older people and they don’t feel a need to try to look young or whatever. Go to the park in the morning, there are old people doing tai chi. Daytime? Playing mah jong or cards. Night-time? Huge group dance things, sometimes with hundreds of people, mostly 60+.
There’s also exercise areas dotted around most towns with equipment mostly designed for helping with range of motion, balance etc and only very mild strength training.
