Posted on 2024-04-24

Growing Old Gracefully
Staff notes april 16

“I just want to grow old gracefully,” who came up with this as a worthwhile way to spend their days? Somehow I can't imagine any of the guys I know saying anything about growing old in this manner. It's not impossible but I'm betting it's a woman thing.

That being said I wonder if those women who express this desire picture themselves pirouetting through their 80s in a tutu. This is not  how I expect old age to play out. In fact it perplexes me that this should be anyone's goal and yet so many reportedly hope to reach old age in this fashion. I will probably stumble my way through old age just as I did my youth.

I searched the web to find the source of this ideology, but though many were credited with expressing the desire, no one person stood out as the purveyor of this method as the best one for aging. 

After considering the whole growing old gracefully concept I decided to be fair and admit maybe I just didn't understand what aging has to do with being graceful. I thought I had a pretty good idea about age so I looked up the definition of graceful to learn how the two words relate to each other.
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The first definition of graceful, according to Webster, is to move in a smooth and attractive way. Not feeling enlightened I confess I didn't see much hope for this to be the route that would carry a woman with two left feet through the aging process. 

The second definition of graceful is a smooth and pleasing shape. Nowhere did it say anything about wrinkles and sagging body parts?