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What does “gracefully” mean? My dictionary doesn’t have it except as an adverb of grace.
Under grace, we find words like charm, attractiveness, beauty, and ease of movement.
I’ve been on the planet longer than most, having just entered my 9th decade (P.S. – for you Las Vegas Raiders fans, that means I just turned 80 ).
Candidly, there isn’t much about aging that I would consider graceful.
Charming? I can’t think of a single person in my circle of family, friends, and acquaintances that would herald me as charming. I think Webster’s antonym would apply better: inelegant, stiff,unchangeable, nondisposable, gaseous.
Attractiveness? Yes – to my daughter’s two standard poodles. Beyond that, the ranks dwindle to, well, zero.
Beauty? Exit from the shower tells it all – it ain’t a pretty picture.
Ease of movement? Not bad for an octogenarian, but only because I take my physical health very seriously, and do serious weight training and balance exercises. Thankfully, the grandkids don’t need me on the floor with them anymore. Half of that playtime went to getting up.
Trying to match graceful and aging is too much work. I’ve decided not to try to be graceful but rather to move to the antonym side.
There’s an argument for being inelegant at this age. Most of us octogenarians have something to say that’s important. Unfortunately, it requires being inelegant to get anyone’s attention since most have sort of written us off as irrelevant based on the number.
Yeah, I’m largely unchangeable. At 80, we have all the answers, hoping that, any day now, somebody will start asking the questions.
So, I’m not going to pursue graceful. I’m choosing “audacious” as my adjective of choice and the style that I will finish out with.
I don’t think you will find much graceful in the definition of audacious:
Extremely bold or daring
Recklessly brave
Fearless
Extremely original
Without restriction to prior ideas
Highly inventive
Recklessly bold in defiance of convention, propriety
Insolent
Brazen
Lively
Unrestrained
Uninhibited
OK, I’m not all of any of those. I like to think I’m a bit of all of them. Some of the above come naturally and were built in when the universe assembled my parts.
Some are coming along nicely.
Most still need a lot of work.
“Do not go gentle into that good night.” Dylan Thomas
I’m not into poetry, but I’m all in with Dylan.
Better to make a ruckus on the way out than to go silently into the night.
What’s your audacious factor? Tell us about it with a comment below.
https://makeagingwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/old-red-tractor-nostalgia-158689-pixabay.jpeg12591880Garyhttps://makeagingwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/logo2-1.pngGary2022-09-06 03:56:532022-09-06 03:56:55In your assessment, do you think you are aging gracefully?
