It seems, increasingly, as though we have become a nation of the elderly.  There are so many people achieving a ripe old age and living to tell about it.  Our health care has improved considerably, and there are myriads of medical and surgical interventions using new technologies enabling the elderly to remain active. 

And then there is also the matter of self-confidence, an inner assurance one gains from looking at oneself and feeling that despite the passage of time there is ample energy and psychical well-being to remain actively engaged in life.

 

When I look around at our immediate neighbourhood it seems as though most home owners are either retired or soon-to-be-retired.  Not surprising, among the original owners who bought their homes around a quarter-century earlier.  Increasingly, there are fewer children on the street, more young adults living with their parents, preparatory to moving on elsewhere with their lives, leaving the old folks to it, on their own.

Most of the retirees are robust enough, to varying degrees.  Some, having reached the heights of their 80s have undergone surgeries that have left them partially debilitated, when they were previously physically active in the community.  And some, like Margaret, who lives on the street behind us, seem increasingly birdlike and frail; she informed me yesterday her daily walks around the block have become more infrequent because of the hot weather, and it looks as though she can barely toddle along.

Others, like my husband, (and me) refuse to let the years dictate their limits.  They actively engage in taxing physical endeavours, look after themselves, acquire the mindset of those who value life enough to take charge of their immediate future.