Secrets of Being 90

Being ninety takes work. It's work you can't talk about. Most people think you are daft anyway. They nod and smile but they aren't really listening. The world has a way of ticking you off even before you're due. So how or why do you keep on living? And still love it. First of all it's luck. Sheer luck. So many elders are caught up by some nasty "thing" that convinced them to give up. Not giving up is the first rule in being ninety. You have to talk yourself out of thinking OMG I am ninety and awful things will happen. I gave up on that a long time ago because negative thinking is a waste of time. Time you don't want to waste. I talk to myself a lot but silently. If anyone hears you speak to yourself out loud they think you need to go off to the funny farm which actually, if there were one, would be delightful to go to. The "home" places are no fun at all in spite of the little schedule cards that include  yoga, dances, crafts, cocktail hour, concerts and bus trips to the mall. None of the above are much fun for elders. Sorry. They are simply one of the somethingtodo events to fill the calendar. Cynical? No actual, and actual is considered a no no. That's why I live alone and love it. Ninety year olds can live alone weird as it seems. We do our own cooking even though most people steam something in a package, a lot of us use fresh produce and meats to slice and dice and cook. Yes, cook. We love it and even though it's a tiny amount of it, we eat very well. No tofu or kale, thank you very much. Bio feeback really works. You can talk to your body. We ninety year olds politely ask our bodies their tolerance levels and needs. We listen to them. It's all we have.  We use out minds to tell our bodies to relax and go our own way. We don't believe we have to dash about pretending to be youthful. We passed that stage long ago. We know what to do, and how to do it. Don't tell us, let us tell you. If we need help we'll ask. Don't grab at us or purr at us. We have brains that, yes, ride around in our old bodies, but we use them. That's how we make it, as you do, to the end of every day. We are the gens of today, not some media anachronism. We are you, but the you to come, your future self. We are ninety. We live.