You and I Are Too Old to Be Told We're at Death's Door: We're Too Busy Being Badasses

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Jon Butterworth on Unsplash

This is what it really means when people say age is just a number

Unless we’re supine (facing up, flat on our backs, full of tubes, gasping for our last breath), or prone, as in face-in-the-dirt already, chances are that most of us are still pretty full of life.

If death is imminent, most of us are fully aware of the fact, particularly if a large animal has its teeth embedded in some tender part of us.

Like a few idiotic Yellowstone tourons, but I digress.

Barring that,

don’t commit us to the coffin because of a number.

If folks want to kill themselves off young with really bad food, sedentary habits, addictions and the like, have at it. That’s precisely what’s happening right now: a huge portion of the American (and Western) population eats 60% or more ultra-processed foods, which are killing them softly, swiftly and horribly.

For us oldies but goodies, being fifty-ish, sixty and up all represents a brand-new life. You wonder why so many of us can be seen in Whole Foods and local green green grocers. We got the memo.

Time is short and if we want the life we always dreamed about, it’s time to train for it. Even better,

So many of us haven’t yet turned on the ignition.

Society is so swift to write us off the moment we reach the halfway point. When did halfway (say, fifty) suddenly become one foot in the grave?

My high school had a celebration back in 2013. In a rare gesture of condescension and inclusion, I was invited. The idea was that my Central Florida school was going to have a collective Turning Sixty party. It was billed as “one foot in the old folks’ home.”

I demurred. I was in Croatia doing this:

Yes, I held form all the way to the river. The author at 61

Open water kayaking off the coast of Croatia

At the top of our hike, Croatia

But I did send them a birthday card. I was doing a multi-sport trip in Croatia. The above bungee jump was the icing on the cake after a week of kayaking, hiking and mountain biking, with the much-younger group members laughing at the “old lady.”

Said “old lady” had just completed summitting Kilimanjaro, Macchu Picchu and Everest Base Camp within seven months. Just saying.

Only one other guy tried to bungee and he bonked it halfway down. In a wonderful twist, that was the asshole who had led all the mocking at said “old lady.”

I’ve got 131 skydives and an “A” Parachuting license. I love being in the air.

And I’m not alone. Here’s an article to get your attention about who is out there setting new records for skydiving after sixty.

Let’s never ever underestimate people over fifty. We simply have no clue what they’ve accomplished and what their skills are. Even better, we have no clue what they’re capable of next, which is what ageism cripples.

There are so very many people my age and older who have done far more difficult sports than any of this, who make me look like a total noob. I love and admire every single one of them.

Their stories are what keep me striving, juicy, engaged and seriously motivated.

For a great many people, finally reaching a point where we are past the daily grind is an untrammeled freedom. If we have taken care of ourselves well enough, there’s really no limit to what we can do.

Even better, you and I can start getting in better shape at any age.

Want a REAL success story for someone of an age? Ever hear of Barbara Hillary? Here you go:

In 2007 at the age of 75, Hillary became the first known black woman to reach the North Pole.^[3] She reached the South Pole in January 2011 at the age of 79, becoming the first African-American woman on record to make it there and simultaneously the first black woman to reach both poles.^[4] Following her ventures to the North and South poles she became an inspirational speaker, addressing organizations such as the National Organization for Women.

How many people even have a clue that such people exist? These stories are what keep me working out, heading out, taking risks and pushing my boundaries. Just about the time I think I’m all that, I stumble on a story like this and am reminded- you have a long way to go sister.

Hillary’s hardly alone. I’m hardly alone. Increasingly, as people age into more time, they also realize that time is limited, and it’s also time to get healthier so that our final years are full of everything we starved ourselves of before now.

Even with a late start, when we finally do get around to start taking care of ourselves, doors open up in direct relation to how fit we can get.

Didn’t say thin. I said FIT. Functionally fit.

In fact, it’s downright remarkable what all of us zombies, those of us who have inched ever so slowly past fifty, and therefore the walking dead, are out there doing in the world.

This past week I posted a piece which took down an LA Times headline which I found to be uniquely insulting:

“You’re not gross and sad for getting older. Here’s how to think about aging instead”

Real title. The article wasn’t bad, since it was written about a 72-yo relative badass.

The problem I had with it, other than that offensive title, is that all too often younger writers treat their badass elder subject as some strange, exotic, isolated laboratory specimen, a one-off.

Those interesting, active, aging and engaged older folks are far more common than media would have us believe.

We aren’t outliers. We are everywhere.

The journalist was, as

Jan M. Flynn

put it, “puppy chow.” Most very young journalists are too crippled with ageism to appreciate their subjects and treat them - and again I quote Jan here - as the formidable people they are.

Jan, like me, likes to ride and she also likes to ride overseas. She just located a stable (I did too, finally found a stable just today, yay).

If “puppy chow” wasn’t chortle-worthy enough, another kind commenter,

Wendy Melvin

weighed in. Wendy keeps following me from site to site online, for which I am so grateful, because this quote:

I was unaware that it is time for me to feel " gross and sad". I shall remind myself to do so as I gleefully trek the Serra da Estrella, the mountains near my home. And I should heartily endeavour to think gross, sad thoughts while I am naked and scrambling on boulders after splashing about in the Alvoco river. I'll set an alarm.* (author bolded)

Yeah, we’re just rotting in our rocking chairs.

If that weren’t enough, Wendy added that the article and headline in question raised her “pistivity levels.”

First, I fell off my chair laughing.

The Urban Dictionary has two versions of this (and I knew nothing of either):

Pistivity:

The highest level of being pissed. The height of you plus the person your pissed at.

I have reached my level of PISTIVITY.

Pisstivity:

Degrees of being pissed off one can encounter!

I pissed her off to her highest level of pisstivity

Okay, I was howling by this point. No matter how overblown my opinion may be of my opinion (which is worth the air it’s written on), Dear Reader will always and forever throw down something utterly wonderful, new to me and totally quotable.

Dear Readers are out in the world doing amazing things in amazing numbers.

We just don’t hear about them very much because it’s really good news. Good news- such as Barbara Hillary’s remarkable feat- doesn’t sell as well as blood and gore and war.

Oh, and Kim Kardashian’s tits, if they happen to be peeking through fabric.

You will forgive this writer if she doesn’t give a flying shit about that twit’s tits, but that’s just me.

A couple who follow me on WalkaboutSaga.com,

Randy Roig

and his wife, train hard and then head out all over the world. Last summer they hiked the Dolomites. Randy was kind enough to share his workout program with me so that I could pass it along to my readers.

They’re in their seventies, only taking a break from their travels to get tuneups and mend.

They’ve got new joints and bionic bits and pieces like so many of us this age so that they can rev up and get back out there again. Randy’s wife took a header and slammed her shoulder in the Antarctic, so that kept them home for a while too for surgery recovery and PT.

I can’t speak for you but I’d vastly prefer to bark a shoulder trying to negotiate heavy Antarctic winds and ice than slipping on a banana peel in my kitchen. We older folks do love to discuss our bodies.

However.

Would you rather talk about your colonoscopy results or compare adventure scars like Mel Gibson and Renee Russo in Lethal Weapon 3?

I’m all in on the adventure scars.

The reason we go through all that discomfort and PT is because we can’t wait to get out there and get after it again.

My buddy Warren Nelson, up north of me, is an endurance runner. He’s in his seventies and regularly punches out 50ks.

One woman who retired from Microsoft, spent two years at a legit elephant rescue facility in Central Thailand (many of them are not legit, I’ve done stories on them) then came back and became the head of a Mustang Horse Rescue based in California.

She’s in her mid-to late sixties by now.

Another woman, my age, got her IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) pilot’s license at 68. The year prior, she hauled a 300-lb man out of the Gulf of Mexico for her Rescue Diver Certificate. She’s just getting started.

When an illness temporarily grounded her, she pointed her considerable talents to painting. She’s very good at that, too. All of this takes work, focus, dedication and above all, commitment.

My friend Chris here in town just powered through a knee replacement. Powered, because she was in a hurry- in her mid-seventies- to get back out leading hiking trails, also taking on the Dolomites and leading snow-shoeing trips.

She doesn’t have time to deal with ageism, Nature calls her outside to lead others into the wild.

These stories fill my world with what’s possible. Who’s out in the world doing wonderful things, especially past fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty? I’m in the business of good news, hope and badassery in all its marvelous forms after fifty. Look for great stories, they are everywhere.

How do these folks stay in shape, how do they deal with inevitable health challenges, setbacks, back aches, pains, losses, failures and so much more? How do they keep laughing and loving life no matter what?

I want to know how people like

Jim the Geek

and his wife transformed their bodies late in life, dumping a whole bunch of weight and keeping it off by daily long walks and careful research about healthy eating. (You can find him here on Substack, BTW)

According to Jim, they’re living their best lives. Leaping off bridges isn’t their style. But living healthy and having lots of love to give the family and the grand dogs are adventures enough.

So for all the “puppy chow” reporters who add immensely to our collective pissivity, I am all in for badassery as we age. With thanks to my generous commenters for the inspiration.

Let’s play.

A photo from Warren Nelson’s early morning run, used with permission.

I hope you got a bang out of this article. Above all I hope you got inspired. There are so very many reasons to look forward to our aging process, but it’s going to take some choices. With luck you came away with ideas. If this worked for you please consider

If someone in your world is moaning about how they’re too old to have a life, please also consider

Either way, life is waiting for you. Let’s go grab it.