“You’re not aware of the years passing but suddenly you notice that people treat you a little differently. I have people who would go out of their way to help me with things that I can do on my own. For example, at the airport, somebody would immediately take my luggage from me and put it on a conveyer belt, thinking I’m too frail to pick it up myself. When I sign up for something like a sports event for all ages, I already know they’re thinking, 'oh, granny’s with us'. Once we start playing, I like to think that they can’t pick out granny because granny is as good as most of the others. I used to go to a jazzercise class, and one day a younger person said to me, 'I really didn’t think I could keep going, but then I looked over at you and figured, if you could do it, I could do it.' She was saying it in a positive way, but you can hear the negative undertones there.

I’m proud of going to university and getting my master’s degree in library science. I didn’t grow up in a home environment where I was made to study and do my homework, so I really buckled down and achieved that goal. I am also proud of the different activities I’ve picked up. I’m taking piano lessons and ballroom dancing, playing pickleball, and completing puzzles. And I’m doing all this with rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, so I have a lot to be grateful for.

At this point in my life, I’m losing some of my friends due to illness. As I get older, I don’t think so much about getting slower or becoming more forgetful because I think that’s going to happen, but there is a certain concern I have about losing people.

A body in motion stays in motion. If you exercise and eat well, you don’t feel like you’re staving off aging, you just feel like you’re going into it as well prepared as you can be. It’s not all for the future, it’s for now too. Don’t spend time fearing getting older because you can’t do anything about it occurring. What you can do is take care of yourself now so that you can ease into the future.”

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Don (70 yrs) & Hulda (68 yrs)

Jun 27th 2022