Old Age...does it erk anyone else?

OP

Over-analysing is good! Part of me wishes I'd just not think about things like this - take it as in comes, don't doubt/question/think about it, etc., etc.. Ignorance is bliss and all that. But I like thinking about things like this.

I wouldn't mind creating memories. Deliberately. I have done. I just fear it'll lack its sentimentality (is this a word?) because it's deliberately done; it's not spontaneous, it's not kissing someone in the rain because you feel like it, it's kissing someone in the rain so you can look back on it and go "yes, I kissed someone in the rain; that's a nice memory, that'll go in my collection". Like some sort of retentive antiques dealer.

I know what I mean, lol. I don't think anyone else will. I warble on like that.

And - I do hope replying to the post has an impact on your life. Even if it helps you to think about other things for a few hours; it's still a few hours of your life. It doesn't have to be for the rest of it. It doesn't have to have an impact on every single atom of your being; even just taking the time to reply is still IMPACT.

You chose to reply to this post at that specific time, rather than another post, rather than do something else. You made the decision to do this particular thing; you've done it, you could have done something else, and that something else may have been done by you at a later time.

That, to me, is impact.

I'll shut up now :biggrin:

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Reply 43

warrior-1

Every living thing has to die one day!!

Reply 44

OP

warrior-1

Every living thing has to die one day!!

Would you prefer it to happen sooner, or later? As in - die "before your time", before you have the chance to do something you wanted, or as an old, decrepid person, with little-to-no dignity left?

That's a thought. What's worse? Dying before you've had the chance to do the things you wanted; you're young (by young, I mean anytime pre-nursing home), perhaps you've got family or you want to go skydiving or something - or dying with little dignity; you're old, decrepid, you've got a degenerative illness and you're not going to Get Better.

Reply 45

I have actually dug out all my old diaries etc and had a look at all the things my gran's given me which I thought were just like ... I don't know silly little things that she didn't want anymore [she is in fact trying to remove all the clutter she doesn't want from her house because she's 84 and sick of having so many ornaments etc].
It's amazing to think of how many things she's done in her life. She was kind of involved in the home guard, she worked for the civil service during WWII, she met her husband at a home guard style meeting as he didn't have to fight cause he designed maps for the navy :smile:

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When her husband died when she was about 66 she decided to travel the world, get an open university degree and I just think it's amazing one person can fit so much into a lifetime.
As I've said she's 84 now but still lives completely independently and despite having a degenerative conditional which is making her blind has found ways of still playing Bridge and even using her computer!
I would love to fit so much into my life :smile:

Reply 46

OP

That's amazing :biggrin:

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What is Bridge? I hear of it a lot but I've no idea what it is. All I can imagine is a lot of old women sat around a table.

Reply 47

lostinfantasies

That's amazing :biggrin:

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What is Bridge? I hear of it a lot but I've no idea what it is. All I can imagine is a lot of old women sat around a table.

She really is, she's had breast cancer as well - I'm sure she's immortal :p:

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Eeeerm...I don't ACTUALLY know, it's like Solitaire you play on computer I think but a lot more complicated...I just know it's her and a lot of other people her age and slightly younger hehe.

You HAVE to be congratulated on this thread by the way - I shall rep you when I have rep to offer AND you eljay sounds a lot more interesting than mine from that post at least hehe :smile:

Reply 48

OP

I gave up on my LJ months ago :biggrin:

. Was the first I had for over a year (lol) as I kept stopping and starting; and then, finally, I just didn't want to bother anymore. It was full of "OHNOES I HATE MY MOTHER!!!!!!111" and teenage blah-blah-blah. I just got sick of it. I might get another one, under a new name (say, under a nickname), and just talk about things like this.

Don't congratulate me :smile:

. Seriously. It was just a bunch of words and a few silly, warbling lines. As proven, a lot of people have thought about this. It was nothing enigmatic or whatever. Nothing profound.

I might try Bridge over the summer. I'm slowly living my 80s now - crosswords, Su Doku, etc.. Now Bridge.

Awesome.

Reply 49

bisous

My Grandad had Alzheimer's for about 3 years before he died last year, and in his prime, he was the most amazing person - did military service from France to Japan, came back to do dentistry in Glasgow, raised my mother and aunt, and enjoyed travelling in retirement. But seeing his condition degenerate - it was horrible, literally like watching someone dying - it didn't look or feel like it was the same person. I think to see someone with so much dignity and pride become sort of the living dead is horrible, and to think that my parents - or anybody's, really - could one day too be in that state is practicaly incomprehensible. Age really does catch up with us all.

So lostinfantasies, I daresay I would "die young and leave a good looking corpse", to quote the great wordsmith Jay-Z, than have to have my family watch me morph into more or less a vegetable. I have seen that Alzheimer's and that kind of thing are so so much harder on the sufferer's loved ones than it is on the sufferer themselves. As for being old and healthy,well it just looks like sitting in God's waiting room to me, but when or if I'm that age, I could feel differently!

Reply 50

OP

moniker

I have seen that Alzheimer's and that kind of thing are so so much harder on the sufferer's loved ones than it is on the sufferer themselves.

That's the thing. Would Alzheimer's be kinder, say, than another degenerative illness, like terminal cancer?

Well...

Kinder to the sufferer?

Reply 51

lostinfantasies

I gave up on my LJ months ago :biggrin:

. Was the first I had for over a year (lol) as I kept stopping and starting; and then, finally, I just didn't want to bother anymore. It was full of "OHNOES I HATE MY MOTHER!!!!!!111" and teenage blah-blah-blah. I just got sick of it. I might get another one, under a new name (say, under a nickname), and just talk about things like this.

Don't congratulate me :smile:

. Seriously. It was just a bunch of words and a few silly, warbling lines. As proven, a lot of people have thought about this. It was nothing enigmatic or whatever. Nothing profound.

I might try Bridge over the summer. I'm slowly living my 80s now - crosswords, Su Doku, etc.. Now Bridge.

Awesome.

Eljay is the best thing that was every invented :p:

- although mine is just a big whinge, I do make myself try and write nice interesting things occasionally but that usually extends as far as saying Rufus Wainwright was gooood in concert hehe.
Hahaha well...according to that Doctor Kawashima's Brain Training thing apparently thinks I have a brain age of 67 so I should probably do more Su Doku/Crosswords but I don't think I could ever understand Bridge, toooo many rules :smile:

Snap's good enough for me :smile:

Reply 52

OP

Snap is awesome, if amazingly violent.

I'm getting another LJ now :smile:

. I'll email you my account once I think of a name!

I want to keep my brain young! I feel like my IQ's dwindled since finishing college on June 20. No longer do I discuss society, Freud, or our existence!

I went and bought a lot of books the other day. I intend to read, sit, and do puzzles. Oh, and drink cocoa.

Reply 53

lostinfantasies

Snap is awesome, if amazingly violent.

I'm getting another LJ now :smile:

. I'll email you my account once I think of a name!

I want to keep my brain young! I feel like my IQ's dwindled since finishing college on June 20. No longer do I discuss society, Freud, or our existence!

I went and bought a lot of books the other day. I intend to read, sit, and do puzzles. Oh, and drink cocoa.

Hahaha true but it doesn't do much for your brain :smile:

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Hahaha you just need some of those velcro slippers and one of those plastic bag things for your hair if you go out in the rain :p:

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The gap between college and uni is unbelievably long but then again I finished my first year at Uni on 1st June so I've literally done nothing to make my brain nice and active. I should probably look at my reading list!
Sooo, where/what you doing for University?

And yes, it'd be great :biggrin:

if you get a new Livejournal sorted out - I think my e-mail address is up here somewhere heh

Reply 54

OP

Hopefully Psychology/Sociology. If I don't go this year (I only have two A Levels and want to complete my ASes to have a better choice of where to go) I'd go in 2008, and possibly look at Athropology with either of those two subjects.

I'm trying to avoid things like Heat magazine, etc.! My IQ's dwindled already. I don't need it any worse!

Reply 55

lostinfantasies

Hopefully Psychology/Sociology. If I don't go this year (I only have two A Levels and want to complete my ASes to have a better choice of where to go) I'd go in 2008, and possibly look at Athropology with either of those two subjects.

I'm trying to avoid things like Heat magazine, etc.! My IQ's dwindled already. I don't need it any worse!

Haha I would have guessed Anthropology or Psychology from your first post, I wish I'd done Social Anthropology sometimes, it looks so exciting and interesting and beats having to do masses of history like I do :frown:

[I don't think there's particularly any anthropological languages modules]

Haha luckily I can't afford Heat magazine at the moment, but I do work in a pub which means a lot of the conversation is very Heat magazine orientated although an old feller did come in and tell me he was the Earl of Essex the other day, but he was slightly inebriated :p:

Reply 56

OP

What, like "oh, 'ello love, can I have a pint, please? Oh! Do you know, I'm the Earl of Essex? Now how about it, ey?" *wink wink*? :P

You've always got the rest of your life to do another degree :smile:

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Reply 57

lostinfantasies

What, like "oh, 'ello love, can I have a pint, please? Oh! Do you know, I'm the Earl of Essex? Now how about it, ey?" *wink wink*? :P

You've always got the rest of your life to do another degree :smile:

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Haha it was more along the lines of,
"Can I have a pint of that 5% lager beginning with W' which just left me thinking aaaaaargh until the lager beginning with W actually transpired to be Abbot's Ale and not any sort of lager and then he's like what's your name so I said Beth and he was like WOW we had a queen Beth once...and I was like yeah NOW. To which he said I've met her many times, when I was young whilst I was the Earl of Essex.

I ran away at this point :smile:

Reply 58

OP