Too Young To Be Old

The last growth spurt before the fat lady sings.

I don’t see why there should be a point where everyone decides you’re too old. I’m not too old, and until I decide I’m too old I’ll never be too fucking old.”— Lemmy Kilmister

After several weeks of contemplation and procrastination, Sara finally made an appointment to see her doctor.

At age 68, she was diabetic. Her blood sugars were out of control. She was borderline obese and had cellulitis on her right leg. The leg was red and swollen. The inside of the ankle had a weeping wound that refused to heal.

She could hardly walk.

The doctor said that if she continued with her present lifestyle, she would not live to see her 70th birthday.

Sara knew she was screwed, and she knew that she did not want to die. And she also knew that no one was coming to save her.

It was not an easy predicament but she chose to take the bull by the horns.

Pushed against the wall, Sara accepted the prescription for a dietary consultation and told her doctor that she would comply.

Also called medical nutrition therapy (MNT), The American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends that people diagnosed with diabetes receive dietary consultation.

This recommendation also includes the 27.2 million adults over 65 who have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes.

Sara said thank you, grabbed her cane, and limped out of the doctor’s office.

When I turned 70, I was also contemplating and procrastinating

Like Sara, I was pushed against the wall.

My issue was not physical. It was more of a spiritual kind, about a promise that I had made to myself 50 years prior. Call it a personal purpose passion problem if you will.

If I did not do it, my inner spark of hope would cease to exist. I would live the rest of my days with a heavy heart that was loaded with regret.

And I knew that no one was coming to save me either. No one was going to rip up the seed that was planted long ago, without leaving a wound.

But I tried, telling myself, “Annelie, you don’t have to do this. You are too old now; you have done enough. Chill out, you’ve earned the privilege of being a free agent.”

Part of me agreed with that thought process.

Then my higher self stepped in, the next size in my personal development. She told me that the above privilege is cool and well-earned, but that I could still do my thing.

The thing that I wanted to accomplish before the party is over and the fat lady sings is to develop health and personal growth programs that deviate from traditional health education.

Instead of telling anyone what to do, I want to show what is possible for us boomers to still do. The why and the how behind health principles matter because only then can we make an educated choice to comply.

My thing is to show Boomers and our older sisters and brothers that at times, the margin between making it or breaking it is quite small. It is minuscule, 1%.

Growing up in Norway, spending almost 30 years of nursing practice at a Northwell Health hospital in New York, and obtaining certifications in critical care, meditation, and cardiovascular nursing qualified me with enough professional expertise to get the job done.

At 68, the same age that Sara was when she entered her MNT program, I became an online student at the University of Florida.

In the master’s program for Health Education and Human Behavior, I took classes that helped me to develop my programs. I was deeply in love with the learning process.

All my fellow students were younger than I was. Some were middle-aged, even past 50. More than most, I struggled with the technology.

Once, I had to do a midterm exam online. No matter how hard I tried and how hard my son tried to help, I could not manage to take the exam.

It turned out, my computer did not have enough bandwidth to allow me to take the test with the privacy requirements.

But I had enough bandwidth.

I drove, with my hubby, nearly 200 miles to Gainesville and took the exam in the Campus Library at the University of Florida.

That was not easy either. It was before I got hearing aids.

We spent the night at a hotel and drove back home the next day.

Eventually, the technology and tending to family members during COVID-19, did me in. I did not complete the program. But, I learned what I needed to learn.

Despite all this, at no point did I ever feel too old.

The process of getting older is slow, unavoidable, and often complicated. Practicing self-directed ageism does us no favors. Thinking that we are too old or too sick to step into our next growth spurt is ageism of the worst kind.

Often, ” We are not sick because we are old, we feel old because we are sick.” This is the message that I want to deliver to my fellow boomers.

At times, making it rests on simply changing our thoughts and our attitudes.

Aging is a beautiful thing when we understand that we are better because of it. We are wiser because we have experienced and learned more by having lived and learned more.

This works as long as we do not give into self-depreciating stereotyping.

Knowing what is and knowing what can be are not the same thing. — Ellen J. Langer

In her book, Counter Clockwise, Harvard psychologist Ellen J. Langer writes that as we grow older, we have a tendency to mindlessly give in to negative stereotypes.

The process of self-fulfilling prophecy of decline deals with the extent to which older adults expect aging to be associated with physical or cognitive detriments.

Dr Lagner writes that because older adults expect to experience deficits, they may be more likely to interpret their own behavior and experience as evidence of their physical decline.

By choosing ourselves, celebrating ourselves, and honoring our dreams and wishes, we can experience an aging process that elevates us to the next level.

We can still improve our health, we can still learn to dance, we can still write that book, we can still forgive our brother, we can still start a business, we can still play pickle ball, can still stop smoking, we can still start to exercise, we can still study, and we can still love.

Keep in mind, that what we could not do because work and responsibilities occupied our younger years, we can do during the twilight years.

The time between 60 and 90 is the same as the time

between 30 and 60.

_ Ingrid Strümke

The day I turned 60, I attended a seminar in New York given by a Registered Dietitian. The day class was about Medical Nutrition Therapy. It was a seminar for healthcare professionals about Nutrition Practice Guidelines for Diabetes, Hypertension, and Lipid Disorders.

Learning about behavior change and strategies to prevent and mitigate the damage of cardiovascular disease (CVD), the leading cause of death in the world, was right up my alley.

“What is wrong with you?”, my friends and colleagues asked when they heard I was attending a seminar on my big 60th birthday.

It was a beautiful birthday gift I gave myself. It brought me closer to honoring a promise that I once made to my 20-year-old self.

When I was 20, I was attending a child nursing program at Porsgrund Lutherske (Lutheran) Sykehus (Hospital) in Norway.

One day we had a lecture about nutrition and vitamins. I learned about Dehydrocholesterol. Saying and understanding the meaning of such a sophisticated word made me feel smart and confident.

It helped reduce an inferiority complex that I carried around from dropping out of high school three years before.

Dehydrocholesterol is an element in the skin that when exposed to the ultraviolet rays from the sun, helps the body make vitamin D.

Vitamin D is an important fat-soluble vitamin that helps everyone, especially us in the 65-plus age group.

The benefits are many. It helps to prevent brittle bones, improve moods, and reduce inflammation. The latter can be a great aid in combatting chronic diseases that put many boomers under the bus, way before their time.

I put that cool word, dehydrocholesterol, pronounced the same in both Norwegian and English, into the treasure chest of my mind. I saved it for later when the time came to share it with others.

Since then, more than 50 years of collecting health nuggets for health promotion and prevention of CVD have been added to that treasure chest.

The objectives Sara met and learned during the MNT program included strategies to motivate behavior change, how nutrition can optimize her A1C level, and the benefits of a therapeutic lifestyle.

A therapeutic lifestyle includes exercise, something that had never been on Sara’s daily to-do list.

Her first daily exercise routine was simple. Inside her house, she had to walk 15 times, back and forth to her front door. This was spread over the course of the day.

When she was watching television, she set the alarm to get up every 30 minutes. She would get up and walk to her front door every day until those 15 rounds were done.

Later in the program, after the healing of her ankle wound had taken place, Sara ventured outside. The older she became, the more she walked.

The more she walked outside, the healthier, happier, and stronger she became inside. Think, dehydrocholesterol.

Growing into the next level

Attaining the next growth spurt is a decision that only we can make. As Dr Langer says, it is about seeing the difference between what is and what can be.

Promoting health through writing is my thing. Yet, it took more than a year of contemplation and procrastination before I published my first story to Medium.

By pushing the publish button, I moved into a higher growth level.

We are never too old to hope and learn and attain new attributes.

When my life journey arrives at the last station, when my last growth spurt ends, and when the fat lady sings, I will celebrate what I have learned.

That difference between doing and not doing, can be as small as 1%. That means 99% vs 100% commitment.

When we do not commit all the way, we leave room for retreat.

Starting a newsletter begins my next growth spurt. I have been thinking and procrastinating about that for a very long time. The first newsletter is scheduled for April 1.

I am still sitting on the 1%.

Thank you.

If you want to learn more about health and happiness go to www.northboundspry.com. A Northbound Spry is a person over 65 who wants to grow and become better at who they are.

Sign up here to receive our free weekly newsletter featuring the best of Crow’s Feet.