How Old is Old?

By TERRI ANDERSEN Contributing Writer
is 50 old? (It's old enough to be enrolled in AARP.) Is 60 old? (It’s old enough to be able to take advantage  of the activities at the Senior Center. At 65 one is old enough to eligible for Social Security and - seems to represent a standard of measures when a person is too old to work and needs the government to step in and let the social security taxes do their job. (I'm not knocking Social Security, believe me  - I thank God for it every day and - so glad to be a senior citizen in this period of history. My parents and grandparents had to struggle on their own.) But what’s really old? 80? 90? I know people of that age - are more active and more fun than some 50 year olds.) So what I'm trying to figure out is what's the common denominator what’s the bottom line that qualifies someone to be considered “old” Obviously we start to age the minute we’re born. Even a new baby becomes two days old, then two weeks old and two years old. Notice the word “old” is used in all those instances, yet is a two-year-old toddler really "old"? Of course not. So I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all relative. To a three year-old child, anyone over 15 year or as tall as daddy might seem old; to a 16-year-old, anyone over 40 could be considered a senior citizen (ever been asked if you want the senior discount by a young checkout person before you even reached 50?); to a 40-year old, anyone over 65 might fit the category and to a 65year-old, it’s usually someplace in the 80-plus range. Then there’s the other side of the coin. When I see 29-year-olds dreading their 30th birthday or 40year-olds being given black balloons marked “over the hill,” I want to shake them and convince them that they’re still so very young and tell them to enjoy those birthdays, not dread them. Even 50-year-olds these days are younger looking and more glamorous than in years past. -Whatever age my father was, “old” was always at least ten years older than he was. Even when he turned 85 he still didn’t feel he fit into the category. He used to ride his bicycle and then roll himself down a little hill on his property just to show us how young he still felt. And that was probably his secret of youth. He was always physically active, so his body did what he wanted it to. Also he read a lot and kept an active mind. Usually when you start getting “up there” in age, sooner or later you're bound to run into someone who'll tell you “you’re only as old as you feel.” So every now and then I ask myself, “How old do you feel today?” There are days I can honestly say I feel like 30 (like at the dance class I’m taking with my husband) and then there are days when I feel like 90. Since I can’t be both, obviously age is relative. Unfortunately, there comes a time when the years take their toll on our youth and an 80-year-old can't look like a 30-year-old no matter how hard she tries, and would only look foolish in the attempt. So I guess the only thing to do is to accept whatever nature hands us and do the best we can with it. As they say, it beats the alternative (at least we’re still around). Not long ago I wrote an article about wrinkles and told about all the information I came across in different magazine articles on how to get rid of them. I just want to add that after all the reading and all the so called remedies, I want to go on record as saying, “the best advice is to ignore the wrinkles and just smile a lot.” (One of the tidbits I ran across in my “research” is that a smile is the best face lift.)