Wait ‘till You’re My Age: Thoughts on Getting Older, with Quotes

            

Wait 'till you're my age...

           

            I remember being a freshman in high school, a lightweight on the wrestling team, and hearing a senior teammate complain about aches and pains and whatnot. “What’s your problem?” I asked one day.

            “Wait ‘till you’re my age,” he quickly responded, “then you’ll understand.”

            Boy, did he seem old to me back then.

            A few years went by and I became a senior, and an alumnus stopped by practice while home from college. He was much heavier than any of us remembered, and severely out of shape. “What happened to you?” I asked.

            “Wait ‘till you’re my age…”

            I didn’t wait. I refused. I went off to college myself and joined the rugby club, where the older members complained. “Wait ‘till you’re my age…” they all said.

            And then I was their age, and it was men in their mid twenties repeating that line I had already heard so many times throughout my life. And then men in their late twenties. And then their early thirties. “Wait ‘till you’re my age…”

            This week I celebrate another year on Earth, and can you believe it, I’m still waiting. I’m still waiting for that day when I can tell someone younger than me: “Wait ‘till you’re my age…” Truth be told, age is what you make of it. There are teenagers who act as if life has already passed them by, and then there are senior citizens who treat life like it’s just begun. It’s all in the way you perceive your own life—how "old" do you feel?

            I know there are naysayers out there who will disagree, who believe that aging is more than one's own perception, that aging has more to do with the physical toll it takes on the human body. Well, I personally know men well into their forties that are in better shape than most men in their twenties. Hell, I know women in their fifties who are in better shape than most men in their twenties. Sure, as you get older, your muscles might get a little tighter, which means that you have to stretch a little more. And your metabolism might slow down, which means you have to eat a little healthier. But that doesn’t mean you have to feel older, that just means you have to live smarter. Some scientists believe that someone of my generation will live to be 200 years old. If that happens, then everything we believe about aging will drastically change. Forty will no longer be the “new thirty;” forty suddenly becomes the “new twenty.” This means, if I’m turning 32 this week, it’s about time to celebrate like I’m finally old enough to get my driver’s license! (And old enough to drink, of course.) And if you think that sounds crazy, that I’m merely being over-optimistic about getting older, then, well, just wait ‘till you’re my age…

            On that note, I’d like to end with some quotes on aging, because, after all, if somebody said something about something at some point, then, you know, it must be true:

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.” –John Barrymore

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”

–Madeleine L’Engle

“I will never be an old man. To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am.” –Francis Bacon

“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.”

–George Bernard Shaw

“Men do not stop playing because they grow old; they grow old because they stop playing.”

–Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

“Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.” –Betty Freidan

“The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.”

–Doug Larson

 “The older I get, the more I realize, the less I know.” –Jon Penfold