It’s Okay To Get Old—Everybody Does It, Sooner or Later!

By Scott Richards

 

old-manWhy apologize for grey hair, it looks good with black. So does white in case you go straight there not pausing at salt and pepper. Concentrate on all the things we are no longer expected to do, speeds we must maintain, or goals no longer sought. Why grieve so young, don’t give up on life.

Move to Mexico, live again and then die. Head south and rejoice we are all still breathing. Take control of the later years, in case we forget, they are the only ones left to do things our way. Don’t waste them idling in a resentful society where age is a plague, where people avoid you in case some of your oldness could rub off on the young and wrinkle-free.

How the American society is so petrified of ageing and death is amazing. We are the international dealers in death and yet we are the least equipped to look into the mirror and see old age planting its tendrils. Westerners in general seem the most embarrassed of this natural process.

They are made to feel guilty for ailments, age spots, a limp, things that used to be up are now mostly down, or forgetting to zip a fly. We all go through the motions of life and death, but not everyone sees it as a negative. Take the reins, head south and don’t stop until there are smiles on the faces of the old people.

North of the border versions of life and living read like a handbook for the rich and famous. Be good looking, make money and then spend it disguising the inevitable. Face lifts, hair color, lypo…S--- happens—live with it, not die because of it. Instead of being kicked to the curb in a country mortified after thirty, the elderly can live here gracefully, with respect and even admiration of past accomplishments.

I have met and talked to many souls that have come down near what they figured was their end wanting to at least die somewhere warm and found a rebirth in their seventies, or even later. Who is to say someone is done with living, the IRS, Emily Post, Vogue? Dare to start and maybe even finish those projects never attempted while mired in tax returns and baby diapers. It’s Geriatric Time, so make the most of it. Take a page from our Mexican neighbors on the natural course life takes from the womb to the grave. Admire their more honest, reality- based view of the art of living and the grace in dying.

Don’t let a case of the “Oldies” stand in the way a moment longer. Quit dying and start living, there is really no other choice for the brave. The inevitable will come, but what will you be doing when it does?

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