Okay… growing old gracefully. What does that really mean? Is it a real thing? Can it be avoided? I wasn’t really sure what it meant so I asked Google and this is what I learned.

Being accepting of your age and keeping a youthful spirit. Watching your diet and exercising, maintaining your looks the best you can, keeping your style of dress suitable for your age. Staying interested in life around you and people of all ages. Not getting stuck in a rut and learning new skills, developing new interests.

Embracing your age– accepting gray hairs and wrinkles.

Letting your hair go gray, or away, starting to wear sweaters more, eating the early bird dinner at Denney’s and quietly proceeding to the nearest retirement home for BINGO and early bedtimes.

Growing old (or growing older) gracefully means accepting the past as the past; a place to remember, nut not a place to live in. And it means accepting the place God has put you in, as the place you are meant to be.

Hmm….

This is a list of a few of the things that I’ve noticed about growing old.

1. Wrinkles are inevitable no matter what lotions & potions you slather all over your face. I’ve tried a lot and those damn wrinkles never go away.
2. Your metabolism takes a major nose dive. This means that when you’re young you can eat anything you want all day (like a king size Reese’s peanut butter cups & Clearly Canadian water or Diet Coke for breakfast) and it doesn’t do anything whereas when you get older you have to merely lick a Reese’s and there an extra 5 lbs on your thighs.
3. Femstache. Yes, it is a real thing and it’s terrible. I’ve often seen women out there who have a stray hair or more and wonder what was up with that… did they shave it or something? What I didn’t realize is that it’s part of getting old! Yea… I’ve found one of those stray, dark hairs! It scared the hell out of me too.
4. Dressing suitable for your age…. this makes me very sad. I realize that I’m not a 20-something anymore… hell, I’m not even a 30-something. But I can and should still be able to wear what I like as long as I don’t look like a street walker, right? I kinda like those Miss Me jeans but my kids told me I can’t wear them…. those and a few other things because I’m too old. I’m sure not ready to turn in my regular jeans & pants for the high-waisted,  elastic at the waist, no back pocket grandma jeans! I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point… and if I do I would hope that one of you would would shake some sense into me.
5. Gray hair is also inevitable and with dark hair it really stands out. I will admit that I am vain and will color my hair till the end of time to cover it up! My hair is thick and course and if I let it turn gray I’ll look like that crazy witch with the bobby pins flying out of her hair in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

I’m not really clear what it means to grow old gracefully still but what I do know is that I have experienced everything in that list in the past couple of years and it sucks… big time. I hate the idea of growing old, turning gray, and letting things just go their own ways because I know that if I try hard enough I can hold it off for a while long or at least hide it really damn well.

What do you think about this growing old gracefully thing? 

Are you just accepting all the things that come with age?

How are you battling age?