Some people make those sounds all there life. My grandfather grunted just doing causual jobs, Grandma said he always did that. I don't believe you are more than half the age of greatgrandma so what will you sound like then?

Did you know that Pope John Paul II said the following words: "I am a 83 years old young person." He said that to young people.

And, he certainly was!

:D God did us a great favor, You are right. This is His way to prepare us for our eternal life. What's pain and sickness compared to what is waiting for us.

Speak for yourself. I enjoy getting older. I am 67, and I do NOT consider myself old yet.

As long as I am "looking at the grass from the right side", I plan on using my brain, and enjoying life as much as I possibly can. Yes, some of the parts are failing, but so what. If you have a 60 year old car, you would be replacing the shocks (knees), the ball joints (hips), repairing the engine (the heart), maybe the transmission would be a little sticky (the brain), but you sure would give up on it, would you?

Be thankful that you live in an era where so many parts CAN be replaced.

I praise God every day that i can still function, that I can still love my wife, and that I can still be fairly active. I have to take heavy duty pain medication (Hydrocodone 7.5/500, 6tablets a day), but since the alternative to that would have been dying in Vietnam, I prefer to take the medication.

My wife sustained a severe multi-level spinal cord injury at the age of 19. She has severe arrachnoiditis, which causes her very severe pain ALL THE TIME. She has an implanted medication pump, that put Dilaudid directly into her spinal canal, and she has to take oral Morphine for break through pain. She has been in a wheelchair for 43 years now, and has to use a massive power chair, that tilts way back, for some comfort.

Most people would never know that she has pain at all. She CHOOSES to live her life as fully as possible. We go TENT camping, she loves to go on trails (I put her in a manual wheelchair, and off we go), she loves fishing, boating, traveling, and she is VERY active at church and in our community. She sings in the Choir and she lectors. She mentors teens, and she also substitute teaches (she was my daughter's teacher, and they introduced us, encouraged me to marry her, and they asked her to adopt them).

You have a choice about how you look at your life. I learned from my wife to not (censored) and moan about this and that. One of our friends asked her once, "With your pain and disability, how can you be so cheerful?"

Her response knocked me back, and made me think and change MY attitude.

She said, "No matter what I do, it hurts. I can stay in bed, and it will still hurt. I can sit in a recliner, and it still hurts. So, I choose to enjoy life as much as possible, and ignore the pain as much as I can. It's a choice, one that I make every day when I wake up. Once in a while, I give in to the pain, and I spend a day in bed. But that is always miserable, so for the most part, I would rather enjoy everything in life, even if it does cause increased pain. That's what my medication is for, to enable me to LIVE, and not to vegetate."

So, instead of worrying about what's failing, consider changing your option to remembering what is still working, and using everything you have, every day.

God bless you and your wife, Mule.

Fixed that (thanks for the kind heads-up I received!)

I had been checking the board from my mobile device. I should know better!

I find that I can still do almost anything that I want to do. It's just that I might be a little slower, or need to find an alternative method to accomplish the goal.

I relish getting older. I know a LOT more than I did as a youth (as the old saying goes, "Youth is wasted on the young"). I appreciate a LOT of things a lot more than I did back then. I have worn glasses since i was nine, so wearing bifocals, or trifocals, doesn't bother me at all. Since I had cataract surgery, I can now see clear enough WITHOUT glasses to drive, and I had never seen that well in my life (I was 20/800 in each eye before surgery, now I am 20/20 in my right eye and 20/30 in my left).

I still sing with the Choir. I may not have quite the range that i did as a kid, but I know Church Music that most of these young folks don't have a clue how to sing. I can do Gregorian Chant, according to the original notation, while they stand there asking, "Where's the notes?"

I have skills now that I NEVER had as a youngster.

I also have a much deeper appreciation of my religion than I had back then (even in my Seminary days). I don't have that wonderful faith of an innocent child that I had when I first converted to the Catholic Church (I wish I did still have that unquestioning faith at times).

No, I think that God gives us these years so we can utilize the wisdom that we have hopefully accumulated, pass on values to our grandchildren and others, and to enjoy life in ways that simply were not possible when we were younger.

I plan on expanding my knowledge, in as many areas as possible, before I die. I will be taking some University courses (they are free for anyone over 65 at Kentucky Universities), I will be taking an advanced woodworking course at a local community college (also free because I am over 65). I have the time to volunteer at my Church and with the Knight's of Columbus.

I do not hate getting older at all. My childhood was a horror story of every kind of abuse that a child can experience. My youth was in the US Army between the ages of 16 and 26, and I made some mistakes there (primarily getting married outside the Church). I left the Army because my first wife walked out on me leaving me with 2 daughters. I am a High School dropout, and still do not have a Diploma (I completed the GED in the Army). I began College at 27, and I was 32 when I finished my dual Masters Degrees, and began working in the civilian world in my profession.

I met my wife through my daughters (she was their substitute teacher). They encouraged me to ask her out, and they really lobbied for me to ask her to marry me about a year later. On our first anniversary, they gave my wife a letter, asking her to please adopt them, so she could be their legal mother, in addition to being their "Real Mom". (She did.)

I have been working since I was 11 years old. I NEVER had any time for myself, and I enjoy the time that God has given me to be able to actually sit back (figuratively speaking) and just enjoy life as it comes.

I sincerely hope that I can live to be 100, as long as I have reasonable health. No, I don't hate "getting old", because i am NOT old. My body may be slowing down some, but my mind is as active as it ever was. I am learning new things, and I enjoy life. I am using my skills, and my experience, to help others that are less fortunate than I am. I spend about 15 hours a week assisting disabled veterans in obtaining benefits and needed treatment.

Nope, I am still "looking at the grass from the right side", and I hope to keep right on doing that for a very long time yet.

Hmmm. I'm looking forward to the alternative too.

No matter what, I will want more here on earth, but that is a displaced desire and impossible to fulfill. Everything here is finite, but my desire is infinite. Only Infinite can satiate infinite. So, I'll be glad to go. Getting older means I'm closer and that's good. I only fear not being holy. Everything else is just network time filler in a way--but in another, it's the abrasive that's meant to grind me down to holiness too, and to assist others on their way. I just hope my death is difficult enough to be my purgatory.

I like what you wrote "mule", and those are my thoughts as well.

I believe that the Lord will "take me home" when it is HIS time, and not mine.

That could be today, or it could be 40 years from now. I hope for the 40 years, because there is still so much that I can do in this world to help others.

I am not in a rush at all. But, if it happens today, I hope that I am ready to face his judgement.

I do not understand the thinking of hurrying things along, or in wishing for a painful death. That would NOT substitute for Purgatory, and the church does NOT teach that it would. We will die, and die in the manner, that God determines. To wish for anything else is both silly, and not following in the teachings of our church.

God will take me when he is ready to take me, and not one day sooner. And I would not wish to have it any other way.

His will be done, and not mine.

A long time ago I read the quote, "Inside every older person is a young person wondering what the hell happened." I didn't really understand it then, but I sure do now! The body just doesn't work as well as it used to, and the brain leaks (mostly nouns), but I'm still young inside!

A friend of mine had just one complaint when she had her 70th birthday, that the day before she had been in her sixties, now she was in her seventies. She had aged a decade in just one day!

Well, I just turned 51....and I have to say that I'm not crazy about the aches and pains, gained weight, handfuls of prescription drugs every day, and the bifocals that are now my lot in life.

But, I do the best I can.

Just was talking to a friend last night and commented that I didn't know how many of the people in our club were older than me. She said, "Well I'm older than you. I remember when you came to the dances and were that young dark haired guy". That was 28 years ago we met. So I said, "But you didn't know I was already past 50". Yea, I'm older than her.

Kotton

When people tease me about getting older and ask me how old I really am, I oblige them by saying, "Older than any of the rest of you."

Then when they say, "Well, how old is that?", I usually say, "I was born on the upper Rhine River near what is now Mannheim, about 38,000 B.C."

Then they usually raise an eyebrow at me, and I say, "I think it was the lightning that did it.....y'see, we were out hunting in this thunderstorm, and we were trying to drive this mammoth into a pit. I was up on the brow of a hill with this big old rock that I was going to smack down on his head as soon as he was in the pit, so the rest of them could get up close with their spears. Well, all of a sudden, I got zapped with this lightning bolt, and when I came to, all the members of my tribe were gathered around me in a circle, weeping because they thought I was dead. I recovered, but for some reason, I just never seemed to get any older after that---I think the lightning did something to the hypothalamus region in my brain, or something, because I got to be about 50 or so and just stopped aging."

If I'm feeling especially puckish, I might mention some reconstructive surgery in my past to get rid of a brow ridge, explaining that as the last actual remaining Neanderthal, I wanted to fit in better with the general population.

Very good!

Will I reach the ripe old age of 61 (the age my dad popped his clogs)? Oh... wait a minute... I was 61 over a year ago... ah what the heck... where's the Jameson's, a belt of that in my coffee will take 30 years off!

I like the aging process......it is the Lord's gentle reminder that we are not to be on this planet forever!

And, I still have some precious time to allow me to be ready for the great event.

Sorry! At times my middle name is "serious".......but we can have humor about all things!

And, if the chair doesn't have arms to give you leverage, ya ain't gonna make it!!!!!

After 72 years [73 next months] I've learned to live day-by-day, be thankful for ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING I _can_ do and don't worry about the things I can't.

There may not be a lot of physical things I am able to do but I can create and share by writing. I've always loved sharing with others and I thank The Lord I have the internet where I can discuss and share.

I think my most satisfying task is writing the story of the founding of the California missions and the amazing Father Serra. I just hope people will take the time to read the story and savor what he and his awesome fellow-friars were able to do more than 200 years ago.