Old age

I am terrified by old age. Not myself at some point being old per se, but rather what old people tend to do when they're old. Or actually, what they don't do. They just seem to sit around all day, I don't know, doing crosswords or playing bingo or whatever. And as I'd rather spend a week doing all kinds of cool stuff than going through the same dull routine for a year, sitting around doing practically nothing worthwhile and being useless absolutely terrifies me. In fact I would rather die than become a useless fossil. So I wonder: did these grandpas and grandmas use to think the same thing when they were my age? And if they did, will I eventually become like them because apparently you somehow can't help becoming like that when you're old and unable to move around well and taking dozens of different medications every day? Or is there a different way?

Thriller author Robert Ludlum (who wrote The Bourne Identity among others) published his first novel at age 44 (which reminds me it's never too late to do anything!) and continued to write highly acclaimed novels until he died at age 74. I'm guessing he was on all kinds of medications and didn't move around too well in his last years, similarly impaired because of old age, but this man just continued doing what he loved. He has shown me that it is possible to continue to do worthwhile things when you are old, so I hold on to this thought whenever I shiver at the prospect of becoming a living and breathing but useless fossil some day, doing little or nothing worth remembering in his last years (and keeping people waiting in line in supermarkets time and again because old people seem to do everything in slow motion).

Also, I have read that (very) old people still in (relatively) good health often still work. For example I read about a 90-year-old man who still toiled on his farm every day and seemed twenty years younger at least. Now I don't relish the prospect of working until I die, but such examples have taught me I should keep busy when I get old (which will fortunately take quite a while yet!), also physically.

So when(/if) I get old, don't look for me in a retirement home, playing bingo with my fellow fossils, but writing stories for the world's enjoyment and going on all the cool trips I can still manage.
Hopefully with a cool grandma by my side who will beg for us to go parasailing again! :)