Something that has hit me (I’m 64) is that there are things that I’m doing or purchasing for probably the last time in my life. I like to do a lot of cycling and one of my bikes is specifically for winter riding; its frame is 35 years old and has to be replaced. The frame that I’ve just purchased will be the last frame for a winter bike that I ever buy. I can also ask myself realistically how much longer I’ll be riding in winter. Also our next car will probably be our last.
And this has always been a mystery to me. At 60 I was in my first ever mosh pit at a hard rock concert, I love Black Sabbath and Alice in Chains, and a station I listen to a lot is an internet grunge station. I’m also learning and practicing guitar regularly - I have an electric, an acoustic, and an acoustic bass.
I fear having to go into an assisted living facility with all sorts of floral-pattern wing chairs and busy, floral wall paper everywhere. When does that horrible switch get flipped?
Last night I was playing a Apples to Apples with my nephew (about 45 years difference). A somewhat famous person was on one of the cards. Half of the people didn’t know who the person was. My nephew said, “he’s an old guy”. I looked him up. He’s 20 days older than me. So, I will be old in 19 days.
Some people love loud rock and roll and that love never dies. A lot of people. Some people never liked it very much to begin with and as soon as it wasn’t the only place to have fun with friends, walked away. That would be me.
When I finally was living alone and had to choose my own music (I was 20 then), I was able to develop my own (extremely eclectic and often weird) tastes, which haven’t much changed since then.
I’ve taken note that Mick and Keith are both about fourteen years older than I am. What that means, to my way of thinking, is that as long as they’re still going, I have at least fourteen years of hard-core rockin and rollin ahead of me with no particular reason to think about whether it’s age appropriate. Have at it, boys, and crank it up.
The thing is, by the time you’re there, everyone else there is your age, too, with the same childhood/high school memories as yours, i.e., the same universe of discourse. A good friend who’s my age (70-ish) is in an independent living community. It’s a fabulous place. This is not like visiting your mother or grandmother in The Home, which is what you’re picturing. She’s not with people her parents’ age-- that generation is mostly dead. The people in this community are OUR AGE (hers & mine) and have the same music, TV, movie, clothing, joke, etc., tastes/references that we do. The same associations and vocabulary. And the same historical memories-- for my generation that’s “Where were you when you heard Kennedy had been shot?” “Did you watch The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show?” “What’s the shortest minidress you ever wore?” Stuff like that.
Assisted living is something different, for sure. Less mental acuity, less physical ability. But still, by the time we’re there, we’ll be with our age cohort.
My daughter finished school (away) about a year and a half ago and lived with us while she looked for a job in her field, which she found in January, and moved out to SoCal. My has lived at home thru college, has one more semester this fall, and took a summer internship in Idaho, and left in early June. This is the first time since 1998 that my wife and I (and our dog) are the only ones living here. Truth be told, it feels…strange. After ragging on my son about mooching off us and becoming a “Failure to Launch” candidate, him being gone has been a bit eye opening. I realized that after my wife, I have lived with him longer than anyone else in my life.
TL/DR: this empty nest thing is making me feel old.
@ThelmaLou nailed it. My late aged MIL lived in an Independent Living place for 4+ years. Which made her one of the longer-lasting residents.
Partway through her tenure they replaced all the carpeting, the wallpaper with different wallpaper, and got all new furniture. To then-60yo me the new look was still pretty dated. To her it was a revolution as they got rid of “all that old people stuff” and put in “good furniture”. She was 94 and fully mentally capable when she said this.
I have no doubt the surroundings and our companions will be culturally age-appropriate when it’s our turn. The only hard part is that we won’t be as vigorous as our memories will be. Fun to listen to Def Leppard in the lounge, but we’ll be done with the music by 9pm in time to go to bed 'cuz we’re all exhausted from our hard day of eating 3 meals and taking a nap.
Awww… I’m glad. Seriously, I go there for lunch often (the food is great) and the thing the dining room reminds me of the most is a college dorm cafeteria. Yeah, everyone is white-haired (me, too, contrary to my avatar), some are on walkers, but they are mentally sharp, funny, well-read, sociable-- they’re US, just older by the calendar.
I’m 55 and refuse to be “old.” Perhaps I’m a physical anomoly, but I don’t take medications, run 10 to 12 miles a week, and drink beer like a frat kid. I don’t want to be old, and refuse to be so.
I certainly understand that I can’t expect all the movies, books, TV shows and whatnot that were relevant to me back in the day to always be relevant. Time marches on. But it sure did sting when I mentioned Weekend at Bernie’s to a younger co-worker and he had no idea what I was talking about.
55 isn’t “old” – seriously, it’s middle-aged, no more.
I mentioned “green stamps” to a guy in his 40s yesterday, and not only had he never heard of them, he had no idea how trading stamps worked. Some people are just uninformed. I know a lot about everyday life in my parent’s generation. I didn’t have to be there to know about stuff-- movies, songs, fashion, events.
My son asked why its called a “checking account” the other day. He and his girlfriend have never written a check.