How do you envision spending your "later years" with a partner?...My husband and I had a few years together after retirement before he passed away.. Neither one of us reached the "old and feeble" stage...We took trips and went dancing and enjoyed our freedom. He stayed active right up until the end despite his cancer...But I know it doesn't work out this way for everyone. Old age can involve being a "caretaker" to our spouse or having to go into a nursing home etc...When we're young we don't always think about our "later years." (I know I didn't when I was younger.)

not really, that used to be a thought, but more of a fantasy now.. i've already got it in my head that i'm alone from now on, so anything should happen, i wouldn't really trust it anyway... but it is nice to think about, kind of like being rich, fun to fantasize about, but will never happen...

your post makes me sad

OOPS! Too late.
I'm an old, gray fart.
My old lady got better and moved to be near her kids and Grand kids.
Sucks, really.

don't be sad, it could always be worse, as it is for so many others... i'm not sad about it, just a fact of life...

do you think at some point in time we lose hope? or chose to set hope aside?

no, i feel hope is the only thing that keeps us going... hope, however small, is always a good thing...i hope it will happen, but i understand if it doesn't... that small glimmer of hope is basically what makes me get up in the morning...

Rabbi Ben Ezra
BY ROBERT BROWNING
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed "Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?"
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned "Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!"

Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence,—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

What is he but a brute
Whose flesh has soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
To man, propose this test—
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use:
I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once "How good to live and learn?"

Not once beat "Praise be Thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:
Perfect I call Thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!"

For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest;
Would we some prize might hold
To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say,
"Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!"
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry "All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!"

Therefore I summon age
To grant youth's heritage,
Life's struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a god though in the germ.

And I shall thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armour to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby;
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For note, when evening shuts,
A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the grey:
A whisper from the west
Shoots—"Add this to the rest,
Take it and try its worth: here dies another day."

So, still within this life,
Though lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
This rage was right i' the main,
That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past."

For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

As it was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made:
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right
And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own
With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They this thing, and I that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass
Called "work," must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O'er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter's wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
"Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!"

Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What though the earlier grooves,
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press?
What though, about thy rim,
Skull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal,
The new wine's foaming flow,
The Master's lips a-glow!
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st thou with earth's wheel?

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I,—to the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

So, take and use Thy work:
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

I think we chose to set hope aside. There is a tipping point.

Sorry!

Good to have a glimmer of hope...

I would love to meet a nice gentleman who I can call my best friend, lover, and spouse to grow old together in love and respect.
I am working toward that now. Hope is in the air!!!

I'm kind of realizing that it is simply something I can never have, pretty sure if I had it that it wouldn't last assuming it ever starts.

Start...There is the tricky bit, my off-the-wall ideas and theories mixed in with a social nervousness that seems to affect just about every woman aside from a couple I've come across essentially means I'll just watch you effers from this side of the tracks for my life.

No problem, I effin' love it over here on this side...We get to play with fire.

I'm never going to grow up, and I refuse to let my future spouse do so either.

yes, to this I can relate. I have been single for so long now that the chances dwindle year by year at my age....for women in particular the older, the less the chance is of partnering up....statistically anyway....whatever...I still have hope, but also am finally comfortable knowing I may always be single

did it ever occur to you that a change in hobbies might help?

I will NEVER be old, but already gray.

As young as I may be, I think about it every now and then. It's natural. I think we get curious to know how our final years will live out. I don't want to ever live in a nursing home, unless I end up unable to do things for myself. I want to die in my own home. I prefer that choice. And if the government ever end up forcing people into nursing homes by whatever age, just because they can, then I will fight tooth and nail to have the right to die in at home.

Spending time with grandchildren would be nice, but since I won’t have any, it would be nice to meet someone who has a child that would let me play Grandma to their kids.

Sunday morning crossword puzzle marathons, with someone who knows the answers I miss. It would be a nice bonus if he knows how to spell psychophysicotherapeutics.

Long scenic walks with my dog and someone who also appreciates long scenic walks...and dogs.

For leisure maybe we will sit on the porch swing and name all the squirrels in our yard, before the dogs chase them away.

I don’t know, haven’t given it that much thought. I’m not really planning on getting old anyway.

same here but I hide it well...lol


been gray since my 30s ... got my 1st gray hairs at 19. I think was all of those History finals in college....