Sixty-Something: Feeling Younger As We Get Older

It’s so amazing how getting older isn’t quite what we all thought it would be. When I was 25, I thought, “Wow when I am 64, I will be old, sit in chairs with blankets on me and do crossword puzzles.” Not quite what is actually happening!

It’s funny when you hear things like, “Today 60 is yesterday’s 40!” I love the way those folks think until I wake up with aches and pains I did not have at 40, however truth be known I still feel the zip of youth. I still process ideas as if I am 27-years-old but every now and then sadly I feel my age. The question is why sadly do I feel my age, shouldn’t I celebrate it?

I love to ride my road bicycle all over Long Island, sometimes on 30-40 mile 3-plus hour rides. Now when I was in my twenties, I never saw many folks in their sixties riding road bicycles in spandex shorts and colorful bike shirts along with state of the art helmets, but now you just do! As for snow skiing, it seems the same folks who skied 40 years ago are the same ones skiing now. Yet 40 years ago very few old people skied. I remember being in my forties and playing golf with my dad in his late sixties in Florida. He was once a powerful man, who would hit punishing powerful drives, but now he was bouncing 175 yard drives down the middle of the fairway and sweating out short water holes, hoping the ball would not go into the pond. Now that is me! As for tennis, when I was in my twenties I would have to play an early round match against some elderly gentlemen. They would have nice strokes, but their serve was week and had no verb. Now that’s me!

I will eventually do a whole column on social media and being “sixty-something,” because I believe it keeps your mind younger being able to stay in touch with so many folks from so many different times in your life. Smart phones are keeping our minds sharper too! Especially websites like Hamptons.com! Staying connected helps stay young.

However technology, science and the free enterprise America have come up with ways to feel and act younger too. There are shaped shorter skis to make skiing easier. There are light graphite bikes with 30 gears to make biking easier. There are oversized golf clubs made with space-age materials to hit the golf ball further and more accurately. New types of tennis gear put a charge in the tennis ball to help as you age. There are now amazing options to have replacement knees, hips, etc. to get some mobility back. Add to this all sorts of hair implants, hair dyes and haircuts to make one look/feel younger. Then there are vitamins, health diet supplements, energy drinks and of course prescription pills to enhance sexual performance. Making older people feel younger is now big business!

Watching your children and grandchildren grow and come of age is a wonderful thing yet it can also make folks age in dog years when there are problems. The same is true with relationships. A good wife is a good life and a long-term bad relationship is most likely not healthy. I am most lucky; my wife is puts up with all of my weirdness and makes our life fun.

But let’s face it! Even as a “sixty something,” a beautiful summer day makes you feel like a teen, maybe think like a teen because deep in our brains are those memories when we were teens, how we felt, what we loved to do, and how it felt to have so much time in front of us. Perhaps we can no longer go about life the same way, yet I believe the old saying is so true, “Live each day like it might be your last, but plan as if you are going to live forever!”