Elderblogger

I found Ronni Bennett's blog, Time Goes By, shortly after I started my own blogging journey. I was immediately captivated by both the clarity of her writing and by the depth of her posts. She is insightful and humorous, and more often than not, leaves me with a jump-up-with-fist-in-the-air, "YES!" feeling.

She writes about what it's like being older in our (western) society and examines the biases and issues surrounding aging.

From her blog site bio, she states:
In my private hours now – age 63 at this writing – I am excited about exploring what getting older is really like. There is precious little information available in popular writing that is not negatively focused on disease, debility and decline. But I don’t believe getting older could possibly be as bad as our culture makes it out to be.

Lest you think it's a whiny blog about issues only related to aging, let me say that she looks at the broad spectrum of society from politics, to healthcare to almost anything that touches us as human beings.

I've occasionally left comments on her blog and was flattered when she added my site to her blogroll of Elderbloggers (you'll see us listed on the lower left sidebar). However, it's taken me some time to embrace the term elderblogger. In my mind, I always equated elder with OLD – and I don't feel old. Yet, as I've let this term settle into my consciousness, I realize that it's not so much about age, as it is about a way of looking at the world from a different perspective - an elder's perspective.

As I further examined my feelings about this, my attitude towards the word changed. I've known for some time now, that the way I view the world and how I deal with things in my life is completely different than how I dealt with things in my twenties, thirties, even forties.

There was a time when I had to win every argument and respond to every annoyance. And if I wasn't confrontational about it, I made my family miserable with my griping and complaining. I wasted a lot of time and energy on things that, ultimately, didn't matter. People who know me probably don't recognize the above self-description, but that's because I was always very "nice" in my disagreements and arguments. In truth, it was the underlying turmoil that was most counterproductive.

So how have I changed in the last few decades?

I'm not so quick to judge, for one, and no longer think that a jerk will always be a jerk – that people are capable of changing for the better if they're motivated, encouraged and nurtured. Instead of feeling helpless because the problems of the world are too vast, I believe in doing things within the realm of my smaller world to affect change – I believe in the ripple effect; one good action setting off a chain of other good actions. I don't feel the need to prove myself, my competency or my intelligence anymore. Instead, I'm content with a quieter introspection and the realization that others will judge me however and in whatever way they choose – whether I like it or not. I no longer think it's necessary to respond to every little challenge or argument anymore – as if it's some red badge of courage. Instead, I stand up for what's truly important to me and don't waste my energy on petty issues.

The passage of time, experience and maturity have all brought me to this state of elderblogger-ness. The more I think about it, the more I appreciate where I am in my life.

So now, I've come to embrace the term Elderblogger and thank Ronni for including me as one of them.