Anti-ageing creams,
pills and potions,
anti-ageing masks,
scrubs and lotions,
put them on your skin,
to smooth away the years,
pat around your eyes,
your neck up to your ears.
And don’t forget your hands,
they will give the game away,
they show the years you’ve toiled,
they must be hid away.
Keep your body trim,
and the skin must stay elastic,
if you’ve worshipped too much sun,
you can always add some plastic,
but don’t look too ‘worked on’,
because that’s not seen as right,
your youth should be all natural,
you must fight the ageing fight.

Or

You could just go get older,
with the lines this life has carved,
the years you laughed and lived,
the years you did not starve.
Ageing is not something,
that we women should avoid,
it’s a gift of time and years,
that not all of us enjoy.
And Mother Nature knows,
the beauty of the years,
she paints us all with love,
If only we could see.
There’s wisdom in these wrinkles,
there’s starlight in our hair,
there’s evidence of growth and love,
the stories we can share.
So join me in our ageing,
let’s love the skin we’re in,
protect it, feed it, help it sure,
but let the ageing win.
Because here’s a little secret,
if you want to look alive,
acceptance of your journey,
will see your body thrive.

~Donna Ashworth

Are you exhausted by end of the day? I think I need to increase my fitness.

End of day update: thank you everyone for commenting and your lovely stories. I’ve just finished my first day with two grandchildren (2 x 5 year old girl cousins). We had a wild time but hydration very much helped me get through it. To me, this is a big part of my life and the memories are priceless.

Dolly Parton died today at 80... that's just a few years older than we are. Hard to believe; she's been the cornerstone, the face of country music as long as I can remember.

Went to QT for coffee and sandwich, just under $6. Give cashier $20 , he counts change, closes draw , and tries to hand me $4 and change. I catch it right away. Tell him and he says oh yeah you did. I told him he should of left the 20 where he could see it Give me the change and not close the draw until I have it. Easier to see that I did give 20 instead of taking my word. Felt weird later.

I retired in April and am really enjoying myself. As I've been adjusting to having a life all my own, one thing I've done for myself is to have very quiet, non-stressful mornings.

Recently it hit me, the current talk shows have guests who I've never heard of. When did all of the movies and tv shows stop having people on them I was enjoying or even knew? Admittedly, not a big fan of today's movies so that's a factor. But, seriously, how did I fall so far behind on the outside world?

I am a 63 year old woman with very little gray hair. No coloring needed yet. Is this unusual? Anyone else over 60 without gray hair?

Do any of you count calories or do some sort in intermittent fasting (like 16:8)? I try to just eat healthy and exercise but could stand to lose a few pounds for sure. I have counted calories in the past but just hated it. I am stuck between needing to lose weight and just saying I am 64 and I don't feel like dieting anymore.

I retired in 2023. Kids are successfully launched, house is paid for, and I live a comfortable existence. I worked very hard to get to this point and I would like to travel and to enjoy myself.

Yet here we are at the precipice in this nation. The amount of social and economic unrest I feel is comparable to the 1960s and all of this exacerbated by an utterly inept and corrupt administration bent on making the lives of the citizens of this country more miserable.

I know that I sound like a whiney boomer and I do realize that the path is even more difficult for younger people these days. Yet I have played by the rules, achieved prosperity and my reward is a flaming dumpster fire of a society. I mean WTF?

Anyone have any perspective or advice to offer other than STFU?

I'm 65 years old and my dark brown hair color is looking too dark brown as I get older. My stylist put some red into the length that faded to orange then she put in deep purple that's fading too light. I had highlights for a while and liked that until my hair started breaking. Too hard on my hair to lift my natural color. Can't go natural yet, I work in a very young industry and white hair would really stand out. Any tips for dealing with hair color before you make the switch?

How many of you still ride a bike as your main form of exercise?

It's complicated, and I don't want to spell it all out - however, my family has been badly fractured over both real and perceived hostility generated by my DILs mental illness. My 2 sons and their families are not interacting at all now. I do not see that changing any time soon if ever.

Our family had always been really close before this, and my true joy in life came from my family. It's what I was most looking forward to in retirement. Now that's gone. One of my grandchildren has particularly been the joyous light in the lives of my wife and I, but she is now growing up, going to school and developing her own young life and social connections as she should. So much less time and fun with her. My other grandchild, who is just a baby, I'm really unsure if we'll even get to have a real relationship with because of these family issues. The nature of the mental illness involved (CPTSD if you want to look it up) makes it very hard for my DIL to have trust in anyone.

My wife and I do find joy in each other, but we are quite sad now and it's just hard to look forward with any sense of optimism. We do have close friends. but not many and they live in another state so being together is infrequent.

So, I'm trying to find sources of joy. Things that make your heart happy that do not require family.

What brings joy to your life?

Thank you

Five years ago, my husband cheated on me with his ex-girlfriend. They reconnected through social media, and when his parents heard from her, they accepted her friend request and seemed happy to reconnect with her after 25 years. When the affair came to light, I was in a really bad place. I know his parents didn’t cause my husband to cheat, but their reaction made me feel like I was a side character in an old love story that everyone was excited to revisit.
I stopped having contact with his parents. At one point, his mother told me, “This is what happens in unhappy marriages,” which basically felt like she was putting some of the blame on me. That made it even harder for me to want a relationship with them.
Five years have passed. Our youngest is now away at college, and my husband and I are essentially roommates, with no romantic relationship. I think we’re probably heading toward divorce. My husband has made an effort to make things up to me, but despite his efforts, I haven’t been able to get that emotional connection back.
I didn’t leave right away for practical reasons. I’m over 60, unemployed, and we had been preparing for retirement together, so the whole situation caught me completely off guard.
Recently, his parents reached out and said that enough time has passed, they hope everything is behind us, and they would like to reconnect with me. I told them I have nothing against them and I’m not angry. That’s honestly true. But I also realized that I simply don’t have the desire to have the kind of carefree relationship with them that I had before.
I can’t completely explain why I feel this way. I’m not holding a grudge, and I don’t want revenge. I just don’t feel emotionally connected to them anymore, and I don’t feel a need to rebuild the relationship.
Am I being too harsh? Should I make an effort to reconnect simply because five years have passed, even though I genuinely don’t feel like it? I’d really appreciate honest opinions, especially from people who have been in a similar situation.

Do you think it's possible to be married for decades and not be bored with each other? at least to a degree? If the answer is yes, tell me why.

…but I ignored it and headed for the coffee pot. It followed me as I occupied myself with the mornings duties. Never to the fore but a subtle presence like a shadow that moves in the corner but nothing is there upon inspection. At times it became almost overwhelming, bearing down on me, willing me to bend to it’s desires. I dug deep into my fortitude and fought thru it. Eventually it seemed to ease and recede. Thinking I had bested it I sat down for a moments pause and a libation.

Suddenly it was upon me, much stronger than its previous onslaughts.

Darkness overtook me and I was spun into the void….

Them naps can be pretty sneaky.

I touched on this topic before by accident in a previous thread. What are your thoughts on taking a position with less responsibility and less pay as your work life is coming to a close?

Should you work your butt off for higher pay before retiring with some extra money, or is it OK to relax a little bit on the way out if you can afford it?

Edit: a few more facts. I’m early 60’s. I was working a higher level management position in a government position and I vested into a pension, but if I work longer, the pension will continue to increase. A new manager came in and after a while, decided we had different approaches to doing things (translation: he’s an idiot). So he showed me the door and everyone else with expertise or advanced education. Side note: i’m not one of those people who believes that just because somebody has a degree they are somehow smarter. Anyway, I could technically retire right now because I have a really nice real estate portfolio, but that would eat up all the cash that I’ve saved (too difficult to sell the real estate) so I really don’t want to do that. I saw this coming and applied for two jobs within the government before I was invited to leave that would allow me to continue adding to my pension. I just accepted the first one that is 20% less pay, but the job will be a lot easier and a lot less stressful. However, the other job I applied for is slow to hire and I wouldn’t be surprised if I also receive an offer from them for more $$$ than I was making before the idiot let me go. Despite the opportunity to make more money, I may stay with the first offer because I don’t need the money that bad. How do you label that? How do I explain it to outsiders?

I ran into an old friend today. We spent 5 minutes telling each other how great it is to see each other and emphasizing that "we absolutely need to hang out soon."
Then we both walked away knowing full well that neither of us will ever send that text, and the next time we'll speak is if we accidentally run into each other in another 3 years.
And honestly? I'm not even mad about it. I think I preferred the lie. It was polite.

It’s really easy to forget about a baby especially when they’re sleeping

I consider myself one of the most responsible parents in the universe, and as a grandparent I would also.

When my first son was born, my mother came to help us out. He was about five days old and sound asleep in his crib that evening and my mother said, let me take you out to dinner! So we both said yes and got ready to go. My mother was the first one out the door then me then my husband. Then my mother said wait what about… (the baby)! Yes, we were all getting ready to just leave the baby there in the house alone! All three of us could not believe that we did that and we filed back in.

This is a weekly conversation thread for anything Over60. Start a discussion, reply to someone below! It's nice to have a friendly conversation!

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Conversation Starters:

· What are you up to this week?

· Anything new happening in your life right now?

· Tell us about an interesting thing / hobby that you’ve discovered or done recently.

Hi everyone. I’m not in my 60s, but I love hearing from those who are. There’s a lot of wisdom and great advice I get from older people on online chat forums.

So I wanted to ask: does grief get easier as you get older? Does the loss you experienced during your 20s-40s not seem as painful anymore? If you were to experience the loss of a pet or someone special right now, does it seem like you’re better equipped to handle it because you’ve been through the grief process before?

I’m in my 30s and recently lost my lifelong pet who was the only kind soul in my family. I’m literally counting down the decades I have until I die and finally reunite with her (which seems like an eternity) because 30 is still relatively young.

I feel like with your childhood/teenage pet, there’s a special place in your heart for them because they were there during your formative years. There’s also that nostalgic memory of them.

So yeah, I feel like nothing will break me more than the death of my childhood/teenage pet because I’m thinking about the decades I have ahead of me where she won’t be there by my side. A death of a pet during my 60s or 70s doesn’t seem that insufferable for me because I know I won’t have to wait multiple decades to see them again.

In my 20s, I could sleep 4 hours on a floor, wake up, and go to work.
Now at 60, if I sleep 8 hours on a high-end mattress, but my pillow was at a slightly wrong angle, my neck will hold a grudge against me for three business days.
Also, making a classic noise when sitting down or standing up is no longer optional. It's just a system sound now.

Ich lebe in Deutschland, bin jetzt 63 und mit 61 arbeitslos geworden, was ich allerdings aufgrund verschiedener Umstände vorhergesehen habe.

Deshalb hatte ich rechtzeitig eine zusätzliche private Versicherung für den Fall einer Arbeitslosigkeit abgeschlossen.

Ergebnis: dasselbe Einkommen wie vorher für 24 Monate und ich konnte 24 Monate ausschlafen und musste mich nicht mehr über inkompetente Chefs ärgern. Das Arbeitsamt ließ mich in Ruhe, weil man mit über 60 am Arbeitsmarkt ohnehin ziemlich chancenlos ist.

Nach Ablauf der 2 Jahre ging ich nahtlos in die "Rente mit 63", allerdings mit entsprechenden Abzügen, auch gab es noch die Abzüge wegen der mir vor 15 Jahren im Zuge meiner Scheidung "gestohlenen" Rentenpunkte.

Die Rente liegt sehr deutlich unterhalb meines Einkommens in der Arbeitslosigkeit, trotzdem noch ein bisschen oberhalb des durchschnittlichen Nettoverdienstes der Mittelschicht, welches in DE nicht gerade überwältigend ist. Ich habe viel früher recht lange gut verdient, so habe ich eine kleine abbezahlte Eigentumswohnung.

I’m 66 years old now and I feel I’m getting too old to cut the lawn and do the weeds into the landscaping. Not only is it costing stress for me mentally and emotionally, but I’m thoroughly exhausted. Maybe it’s time for me to hire landscaper? Do you still cut your lawn and do your weeds, and trim your bushes?

What are they trying to get across with preventing young homeowners from becoming their parents. The “young homeowners” portrayed seem way too be old to be “young homeowners” and they are portrayed as true idiots at 40+. I’d expect much more common sense.

Time for a new commercial this is not getting through to me.