Reinventing Life After 50

I called my Mom (the woman on the Harley to the right) last night to catch up on her latest adventures. There always is one. At 83 she may just have decided to take up a new hobby, start a business, join a hiking club or plan a trip for the whole family to Europe. She started a business at 65, started mountain hiking at 70, and decided to start traveling later yet.

Dad does it, too. He chops his own wood for their wood burning stove every day, delivers meals to the “elderly”, hikes with Mom, and, in the evening studies the stock market, politics, the environment and alternative medicine with a voracious appetite for the latest in whatever he finds relevant in today’s world.

Both are well past their life expectancy. Yet both are as vital, interesting and alive as they were when I was growing up – maybe more. I watch my friends struggle with their parents’ declining health and faltering memories and I know that I am blessed with good genes. But I truly believe that I am more blessed to have parents who are constantly - daily - reinventing themselves to adapt to their changing physical abilities, circle of friends and evolving interests.

I’ve heard people say that people live just too long today. ‘We weren’t meant to live past 50 – that’s why we’re confused about what we’re suppose to do in the second half of our lives. Marriages can’t survive a full lifetime because you can’t help but become bored when you’re living that many years with another person. Our bodies will naturally break down because they weren’t designed to carry us through 80 or 90 or even 100 years.’ Baloney!

We EXPECT to get old, tired, broken down and bored. We give up. We stop looking for new interests because we think it’s too late to start something new. We sit and wait to die. 

Well, not my parents! They’re having more fun now than they had thirty years ago. They’re discovering new things about themselves and about each other. Their long time friends die, but they find new ones. They accept change as part of life and keep moving on to the next adventure. They share their frustrations over brittle bones and loss of hearing. Then they laugh it off and move on.

My mother recently thought she would have to give up her driver’s license because of macular degeneration. I worried out loud how this could alter her on-the-go lifestyle. She spent a solid 7 seconds feeling sorry for herself, then said, “I guess your Father and I will get a lot closer, since he’ll be running me to all my luncheons and art shows.”   

Fortunately she didn’t lose her license, but eventually she will. I worry about their lifestyle changing, but not because I think they will get old and give up on life – only because they will have to give up some of the activities they love. But I know my parents. They will simply find more things, closer to home, to enjoy – and live the good life until it’s over.

Comments

[Joan]

What a great picture :)

[Sherry Borzo]

What great attitudes your parents have! They have provided a great example of how to live in the present. Thanks for sharing a bit about their journey.