What age do I consider to be old?

Once upon a time, 21 was gonna be old and now that I’m 37, it definitely changed. I feel now it’s much later – 65, 70, 75. On a visual appearance, someone might say this person is old but it’s really how they feel, it’s how they act, and it’s how they live their life.

And, I don’t find it to be maybe as negative as some people might feel that it might be. There was a time when I was young, there is a time now – when I’m middle-aged, and there’ll be a time when I’m old.

It’s my god-daughter who thinks I’m old. It’s my nieces who think I’m old. But they don’t – the best part is, and again how I live, how I act, how I interact with them – they don’t realize it until the number comes in. So they ask me, “Uncle Ron, how old are you?” And then, when I have to say 37, then I’m old. You see the shock come over their faces – 37! You know, but they wouldn’t know it until they ask and they forget and then they have to ask again.

So, I think it’s not so much about the number. It’s really about how you live your life and how you feel – how you portray your own age. As I grow older, and that number, that everybody is very concerned with, keeps going up, I realize that I might have less time. But the truth of it is time is borrowed always.

That’s what a great thing about the #WithIt Movement is, is that they’re bringing attention to something that people just are sort of ingrained in. There’s an idea of what an older person is. We don’t know that rich life that’s there, that past life.

We’re all aging together and I think if that kind of idea can go out to be the social norm, that we’re all aging as one, then I don’t think people would have the same, maybe insensitive feel towards people who have aged more so than they have.

We get to that point where we take everything we’ve learned and all our choices are better than they would have been 10 years ago, and I think that’s something that I definitely look forward to – a comfort in self that I think comes with age.