Perspective

A few words from my favorite author, Anna Quindlen:

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen

“Sixty is the new forty, as I'm sure you've heard. And you're only as young as you feel, and everyone feels -- surprise! — younger than they actually happen to be. My hairdresser has this theory about what she calls "resting hair rate." It's similar to your resting heart rate, except it means that no matter what you do to your hair, it will resolve itself into some general style that is its natural fallback position. I personally believe in a resting weight rate: that is, if you're exercising pretty regularly and eating like a normal person (as opposed to those times when your girlfriends have taken you to Vegas for the weekend and you're consuming ten thousand calories a day, most of them in bread, butter, alcohol, and chocolate), there is some weight that your body will naturally adopt.

So maybe there's a resting age rate—that is, the age you naturally feel. According to the Pew study, most adults over fifty feel at least ten years younger than their actual age. A third of those between sixty-five and seventy-four said they felt between one and two decades younger. On his seventieth birthday, Ringo Starr, still drumming, told an interviewer, "As far as I'm concerned, in my head I'm twenty-four." If you woke me from a sound sleep and shouted, "How old are you?" I suspect I'd mutter, "Forty-one."

--Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

P.S.  Forever Young