I saw this saying today. “I feel blessed to have someone
like you to fill my heart with moments of beauty, reflection and love.” Usually
women, who find a man they want to spend their life with, will feel this way
for the first time. I imagine the man feels this way too. Probably the older
you get and you are unmarried, this saying will have even more meaning. I knew
a fellow who was forty-two and all his friends, female and male were already
married many years. He felt left out of their circles; they already had several
children going on up to teenagers. He told someone I know, that he was really
searching for the right one and the years were slipping by. Finally, he met a
young woman who was eight years younger than him, right at church one Sunday
afternoon at a social for single people. He talked to her and as they say one
thing led to the other; they are married now and they tried to have children
for eight years. The blessed event occurred and they now have twins, a boy and
a girl who are almost two. So he at age fifty-one and his wife at age
forty-three have been fortunate to be parents of two lovely babies. He said to
me that lots of his friends have kids going to college and he and his wife are
first time parents. I said “so what, you are parents of two healthy and
gorgeous children. Be happy, secure and be thankful that all you both wished
for came true, it does not matter at what age it happened.”

In my time, they urged women to have all their children by
the age of thirty. They did not have the medical testing they have now and when
an acquaintance had her third child at thirty-seven and she went to school when
the child was five for some event, everyone looked at her like she was ancient.
It did not matter, she had her three girls and now days this is not considered
late in life parenting. I know a young woman who had her first at forty and her
second at forty-two and they are healthy, beautiful and the apples of their
parents’ eyes. I know of a young woman who got engaged recently at age
forty-one and he is almost fifty and they are going to try right away because
they want kids so much. Bravo to them for starting immediately to fulfill their
dreams.

I heard Dustin Hoffman, the actor who is now seventy-five
and is directing his first picture say “no one is going to hold me back because
I am seventy-five.” Good for him, an older popular movie star, to show us
seniors, it is not too late for almost anything.

When I first started to ballroom dance in 1977 and I decided
to compete in competitions with my teacher as my partner; the age levels were
ridiculous. You danced in the category (called a heat) according to your
expertise in the dance level you attained. If you danced as a beginner, you
danced in a beginner heat with levels like 1, 2, 3 etc. However, you danced as
a lady against other ladies, as a man against other men. The age levels were
18-29, 30-49 and then just plain old over 50. It meant that if you were 65, you
were dancing against many different ages of people in an over 50 group. Your
competitors could be 55, 65, even 75 or older. It was not a fair age difference
and it helped to eliminate seniors of 65 to want to even waste their time competing
against 50 year old women or men. The dancers began to complain and after at least
one year, the big shots relented and changed the categories. The over age 50 groups
if they were 65 or older did not compete unfairly with younger people 50 or so.
It made for more heats being held, more money being made and happier dancers.
They, the older folks had a reason to take lessons, to try and compete and most
of all they had the desire to excel against people of their own age and it made
for more equitable results that were fair for all competitors. The age levels were
50-60, 60-70, 70-80 etc. If you were then 70, you who was an excellent dancer,
did not compete against a young 50 year old dancer

My husband and I were supposed to compete as an amateur
couple against other amateur couples in Kansas City in the year of  1984.When we got there and read the program,
we saw that we at ages 50 me and him 54 were dancing against couples in their
twenties. My husband chose not to come down and compete with that age
difference. The funny thing is that several of those young couples in their
twenties had drunk too much the night before and never made it into the
ballroom. We would have won at least a third place because of that. After they
changed the categories and allowed only equal aged couples to dance against
their equal competitors, did the ballroom competitions flourish more.

The moral of this story is to be accurately competing in
anything, you must be matched against your fellow competitors evenly, and of
the same knowledge and most of all, age wise.

As Dustin Hoffman said he is not too old at 75; he is only
competing against himself in being a director. Whatever he accomplishes, he is
using others to project his diversity in the acting profession. If another
director directs a movie and he is only 45, this has nothing to do with a 75
year old director, because the director only directs, the actors finish the
whole entity. In ballroom dancing, the competitors are doing what they are capable
of according to the dance rules for that dance. If they are in a higher and
older dance event, then all doing it are doing the same steps and patterns. In
the movies, the actor say what is written for them and regardless of what age
the director is, he will still direct it the way he sees fit and the actors
will speak the words accordingly.

Age can be what you make it. You can choose to sit by the
television set watching others accomplish things; feel you can choose to go out
every day and participate in some activity that will let you feel emotionally happy,
you can try something new like going to a senior center, where they have many
social activities going on, you can try a new sport, you can even shop and go
to a mall where you will be in a social atmosphere.

Staying home all the time causes boredom, fatigue, eyes
tiring from the television set, atrophy and general decline in your mental
health.

You have the free will to do what you think you desire. Do not
let your ‘old baggage’ weigh you down, that is history. Make new history and
get yourself going. Go anywhere that will enable you to lift yourself up and to
enjoy life to the fullest. Do not let the age number decrease your ‘savoir
faire’ which means sophistication, worldliness and cultivation of great things
in life.

You as a senior or almost senior have that sophistication
that comes with age; worldliness from living in this world so long and you have
cultivated the stamina to continue on for many and lots of years. Even as the
older father and mother have joy with being parents at a later age; so do you
have the joy for living at a later age.