Thursday, July 17, 2014

An Aside on Aging



There has been a lot of conversation in this house lately about target audiences.  We are not the demographic the marketers want to reach.  Yet, when our peers are portrayed in the media, they are presented as muscular, trim, salty grey haired, clear skinned specimens of humanity.

Did we miss the boat????

AARP and other senior resources portray our counterparts as hip, running marathons, volunteering 25 hours a day, and generally, aging human beings who bounce out of bed at the butt crack of dawn and retire at night by the fire with a glass of wine.

Really?????

Deadpoolman and I are fairly active sixty somethings.  When I compare us to the media image, we fall way short.  If you walk on a compacted, wet area of beach, it's pretty easy.  Have you walked in loose sand lately?  One looks a lot like a reeling drunk walking through that stuff.  It's work!  So, really, what does our aging population really look like?  We are not those slim specimens portrayed in the Viagra and Cialis commercials.  What's with the bathtub anyway?  I've never been able to figure that one out.  And we are not lying abed staring at the ceiling each day.

Who are we?

We are people who have paid their dues.  We live comfortably, but not extravagently.  We enjoy stretches of time without constraint.  We try new foods (some of us anyway).  We live more in the casual realm.  We enjoy our children and grandchildren.  We may be somewhat chunky around the edges and may be taking medication for blood pressure issues, but overall, we are spending (God willing) more time on this planet than the majority of our ancestors.

Be careful out there.  There are a lot of us.

1 comment:

The Old Man said...

And we don't view sunsets from iron-clawed bathtubs. But you knew that.
We live in interesting times...