Have you accepted aging?

[MsDaisyee]

Have you accepted aging?   How is your health?  Are you in good enough shape to keep exercising or even to keep moving?, How is your posture?  Do you stand straight or is your chin leading the way?  What is your attitude towards aging? , Are you a happy person?  Are you content with your skin, your looks, your hair, your smile?. Do you wear clothes that are age appropriate?   What concerns you most about aging? If you could change something today, what would it be?

[MsDaisyee]

Annie, thank you for your perception on aging.  I enjoyed reading it.    There's something about young children that helps to keep our attitudes young.  It's a whole different life with children.  
The body does slow down some.  I  find that I can no longer exercise like I use to. Nor do I have the energy that I use to.   I use to lift weights and lately, just don't have the strength to lift weights.  My body doesn't look as toned as a result.  The positives about aging is that we get a lot wiser.  We know all these things but our kids don't listen to our wisdom.  Some of us are entitled to seniors discounts. I'm still not entitled to all of them, but do get the ones for 50 plus.  The other thing that should be a plus is retirement.  Finally we get to rest, but if we are like some grandparents, we end up babysitting our grandchildren so we get up early, work our butts off running after the kids, and drop exhausted after a long day.  That's life.

[MsDaisyee]

I just wrote a long post and it cut off and disappeared.

Anyway, guess I better move faster to write this post.  I am very family orientated.  I haven't entirely accepted aging.  Maybe that has something to do with being chronically ill for a long time, so still trying to pick up on a few years.
I love the younger styles in the stores and while they fit, for me they aren't age appropriate.  I wear my hear long and dye it.  I look terrible and washed out with graying hair,   I am grateful that I can still control my hair.  My wrinkles I can't for the most part.  I am not happy about them, but I don't have money for plastic surgery so have to accept them.  My posture is terrible but I've always had terrible posture.

[AnnieBrooke]

I've accepted it in all but small ways, probably because it hasn't cost me anything up to now that I have cared about.  I have had trouble with infertility, but that is from an early appendicile abscess -- when you have scar tissue and adhesions, you don't look at the second reason why having kids was almost impossible, no matter how old you get.  I also am fortunate to have a long-enduring marriage and a husband who doesn't mind if I'm getting older.  (He is a decade older than me, and I don't mind that he is getting older either.)  And we have a 6-year-old, thanks to the miracles of modern science.  I *do* dislike the purse string wrinkles above my upper lip, but if they really bugged me, I could always use Botox, and knowing it's there kind of keeps me from really finding them a problem.  (I was a bit concerned last year that since I was notably older than a lot of the other kindergarten mommies, perhaps they would all stand together and talk to each other and I would be shunned in the other corner of the room, but come to find out everyone was a little worried about being shunned and we all got friendly.)  My clothes are sort of neutral, in winter it's corduroys and a sweater, and summer it's shorts or jeans and a tee shirt.  My clothing indulgence nowadays is to get higher-quality clothes rather than a broad variety.  

I do notice that now I spend less time fixing myself up and primping.  This is largely of necessity (if we can get out of the house on time with a 6-year-old in tow, that's good all by itself) but also I suspect that it's less interesting because I'm less rewarded by the results.  Sometimes it is fun to dress up even now, but we don't have the occasions as often as we did when I was in the workforce.  )I do have a special category of outfits for the book soirees I attend with my galpals about once every couple of months, but that runs to silk tunics and footless tights and sandals, not to anything formal.)  My own mom simply never wears a dress any more for any reason.  I haven't gotten quite there, but can see that it would be a relaxing mode of life.

My only concern about aging is that someone wrote about middle age "You feel great and then suddenly you aren't."  In other words, something can go wrong suddenly.  But if I brooded on that, I would have brooded on it when younger too ... someone can get hit by a car when young, or get a disease.  I know the shoe can drop, just haven't had a bad sense about that.