“As long as I am breathing, in my eyes, I am just beginning.”
― Criss Jami

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a close family members 80th birthday. Cold as it was in Melbourne where the temperature actually dropped to minus 1 degrees for the first time in July in 18 years … we celebrated with dinner with family and close friends, a beautiful homemade cake and candles blown out to traditional birthday song rendition; It was a quiet affair but apart from that it was still a special day to remember. This family member’s actual birthday is not until the end of the month but in true family tradition of ‘surprise’ birthdays … the day was bought forward a few weekends. She was pleasantly “surprised” in the fact that we had remembered and we had made the effort to travel the distance to spend some short but quality time with her; to celebrate this special moment of time, her birthday, to celebrate a significant age.
This week, thinking of that short but successful trip, and thinking of this person, I reflected upon the factor of ‘age’. Yep – it’s a deep-thinking blog this week!

So …. what constitutes age???

Formally, dictionary definitions determine it as the length of time that something has existed; the particular time of life when it is possible or typical for people to do something; a period of history. So when I read that, I deliberated this definition and considered how when we place a boundary noun such as ‘toddler’, ‘teenagers’, ‘middle age’ or ‘old age’, we are limiting that existence to a particular time or stage of life – a moment in history! I have already had quite a few of those historical moments in my lifetime, believe me … but tell me, when does each stage begin or end? When do we start ‘getting old’?

It is interesting that when you are 15, you cannot wait until you are 18 or more … to be an adult. I remember when I was in my 20’s, I thought that 30 was ‘old’. When I moved into those years, I then considered 40-50 was ‘old’. When my late husband was turning 40, the whole year before he celebrated this birthday, he kept saying “I’m almost 40 now”. It literally drove me up the wall as I would question this sentence to him so many times with the word “… and???” I truly believed he thought ‘turning 40’ was the start of the demise of his life … you know the old saying, “Up the hill and down it again”? Interestingly, once he had his 40th birthday celebrations, he had a new lease of life and he certainly was not old at all and not once was that sentence repeated again. I also know that he certainly was not walking ‘down that hill’, instead he picked up his feet and ran further up the first one! Sadly he never made it to his 50th birthday, and I wonder, had he lived, what his feelings and thoughts would have been about turning 50!

The ageing process is of course a biological reality which has its own dynamics beyond human control. It is also subject to the constructs by which society makes sense or labels ‘age’. Other socially constructed meanings of age are more significant such as the roles assigned to each age. The toddler is 1-3, those ‘terrible threes’ and ‘frustrating fours’; the ‘pre-schooler’ is 4-5; the ‘teenager’ is a significantly broody and moody 13-19yo, but when does ‘middle age’ begin? At 35? 40? 45? 50? And more significantly, when does ‘old age’ begin? From studies completed, the average response of adults under 30 is that ‘old age’ begins at 60. Adults between the ages of 30 and 49 think ‘old age’ begins at 69. People who are currently 50-64 believe ‘old age’ starts at 72. Responders who are 65 and older say ‘old age’ begins at 75 and above.
Research on ‘when does old age begin’ also indicates that only one thing is certain when it comes to old age – that it is for other people. The majority of people reviewed agreed that none of it applied to ‘them’.

In my own family, I have two mother-in-laws, one aged 80 the other aged 93. Both are quite different in what they say, do, act but the similarity of these two woman is that they do not consider themselves ‘old’. Yes, their bodies may be older, their capacity and their sustainability to do things may be slower, but their minds and mental attitude to life is oh so ‘not old’. Both travel to other countries, both drive their own cars, both live alone and not in a nursing home, and both are quite self-sufficient and connected to life in a way that is not depicted as ‘old’ or ‘elderly’. (I have to add here that sometimes a person being classed as elderly can also be offensive as it brings to mind a connotation of feeble and dependant. Many elderly people I know are definitely not like that!)

I also have an aunt who turns 80 this year and she is definitely not classed as old, or elderly. She is busy in her life, still connecting to humanity through her friendship groups, her church friends and although at times not well, still busy planning holidays in Australia and overseas with her husband. No, they are certainly not old or elderly. We also have many of our patients who ‘on paper’, are officially ‘old’, they come with medical ailments but they do not act old. At times I am so surprised when I read the actual age of the patient attending. Our oldest current patient is 99 and at time of this blog, she is still driving herself locally, she is autonomous, she is very engaging and such a surprise for people when they find out how old she actually is. She is so amazing! I know so many people who are in their eighties and onwards and still looking forward to tomorrow, to their ‘future’.

Yet on the same hand, sometimes people feel and act old because they are lonely, and I have learnt this can have a huge impact on their mental wellbeing and how they project themselves. I also know people who have ‘always been old ’… from an early age … no matter what their age was. They are always tired, they are always “feeling their age”. Their body and mind reflect this fact and in many ways they have been ‘old’ for a long time because they act ‘old’. I know people who are much younger, even younger than me who have already given up on life and their attitude is ‘old’, ‘elderly’, even though they may not number that many years, be of a great senior or ‘old age’. I believe that you change your perspective in life when you shift from seeing the future in terms of your potential and what you can achieve or do and instead, begin to see it in terms of your limitations. As the old saying goes, we “dig our own grave” but in reality we don’t have to.

Do you know that the Japanese language has a specific word ‘sabi’ for the beauty that comes with age? The term refers to the concept that changes due to use, age, or wear may make an object more beautiful as well as more valuable. This term has been combined with another Japanese word, wabi, into the phrase ‘wabi-sabi’, which means, “a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete … it incorporates an appreciation of the various cycles of life … of the beauty of each cycle we pass through. What an inspiring thought!

Each ‘age’ has its own beauty, has its own value as we move through it. For me, right now at my age and stage of life recently having a birthday in my mid-fifties, I have reached a most enjoyable age and stage of life. I love being with my family, I so enjoy time with my daughter and son, my grandchildren. I love being at work, working with my husband, surrounded by all ‘ages’ from the newborn baby, the young, to the ‘very old’. I can look at the young ones, I can look at the more senior ones and feel truly I am in a great ‘historical ‘stage of my life. To me, I am quite young! And even though the chronological clock tells me my age, I do not believe it as most days, I do not feel it. When my husband and I are down on the floor playing with our grandchildren, or flying that kite, or paddling that river, or riding that bicycle each weekend, doing things individually, as a couple or with our growing families, we may feel tired, but we are ‘young’, we are not ‘old’! I look at my silver-haired husband and he is definitely still very sexy and ‘young’ to me!!

And it’s not that I have this obsession about not wishing to get ‘old’. Of course growing older in years is going to happen without any doubt. I will accept that as it comes. But for me, ‘age’ is truly held within the state of mind, in keeping both the mind and body active. As they saying goes, you are as old as you feel … it depends on what you are feeling!!

I guess on a finishing note, reflecting on the birthday celebration of this family member this past week, the point to distinguish is that when I too reach the birthday celebration of 80, I would like to be ‘sabi’… to be thought of as more beautiful as well as more valuable in my ‘senior age’. To still be enjoying life as I am now, valued for what I can still do and for what I can still achieve in my more advanced years! And if you are honest with yourself … wouldn’t you?

And yes I truly agree with the research statement of what constitutes old age “… being old is definitely not me … it’s for that other person over there”.

Cheers!