04/19/2018
A Look in the Mirror
No One Told Us How to Get Old
According to the World Population Prospects, 2017, 962 million people are now considered elderly. The generation who saw so many changes and contributed so much to the world is facing what everyone will face eventually-old age.
We saw the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism, the assassination of a President and the rise of Women's Rights. We burned our bras, gyrated to Elvis and passed out, en mass, in the presence of The Beatles. The first colored TV was produced, store scanners were invented and a man walked on the moon during this generation. Some made it to Woodstock and some of us just rebelled by wearing hip hugger bell bottoms and crop tops.
We were told we were going to be the downfall of the United States, roaches were going to breed in our hairdos and you don't want to know what the guys were called for wearing bell bottoms. Don't have s*x before marriage, don't live together and if you became pregnant, married or not, you were sort of hidden away until a baby miraculously showed up one day. Good girls didn't do "it", wear makeup or go on dates before fifteen.
What we weren't told was how to grow old. No one told us how to deal with looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person looking back. No one told us how to deal with hurting in places we didn't know could hurt and body parts we depended on becoming undependable. And no one ever told us about menopause. But, also, no one told us we wouldn't persevere.
We go to the internet and learn how to wear our hair after 50, 60 and 70. Websites are there to help us evolve to 50, 60 and 70 dress styles and God bless Chat, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. There are other older people we can "hook up" with who understand the special problems the elderly face-- around the world. Think of that-a woman in the UK can bemoan gray hair and wrinkles to a woman in South Carolina. All we need is a tablet and the internet. We can reach out to someone who needs help with depression, loneliness or just the blues.
Hey, now you can actually visit your psychiatrist via cell phone.
But, I'm here to tell you - looking in the mirror will not get any easier!
Written by: LINDA SHEPHERD
CREDITS https://unsplash.com/?utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=photogra
