Old Agers are Senior Citizens, too.

Have you ever looked at others your own age and thought, “Certainly I can’t look that old?” If so, you may enjoy this tale from a Senior dental patient -  as I recently received via email.

I was sitting in the waiting room for my first appointment with a new dentist and I noticed his Dental School Diploma, which showed his full name. I then remembered a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy in my high school class nearly 40 years ago. He had the same name and I had a secret crush on him for two years - way back then.

Meeting him, however,  I  discarded  these  thoughts of old. This balding, gray man with the deeply lined face was way too old to have been my secret heartthrob.

Following my dental exam I asked him if he had attended Quakertown High School. He replied in the affirmative…

“Yes, I did. I am a Panther.” he proudly stated.

I asked him his year of graduation.

He  responded, “I graduated in 1960. Why do you ask?”

I exclaimed, “You were in my class!”

He looked at me very closely, as though examining me again.

Then that old, ugly, decrepit, fat, bald, rude jerk asked, “What class did you teach?”

The other day a young person asked me how I felt about being old. I was taken aback, for I do not think of myself as old. Upon seeing my reaction, she was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question, and I would ponder it, and let her know.

Old Age, I decided, is a gift.

I a m now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother!), but I don’t agonize over those things for long.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I’ve aged, I’ve become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend. Read the rest…