Getting old gracefully

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As I've aged, more and more of the family and social supports that were available to me when I were younger are vanishing. My parents are at or near retirement, most of my extended family is either retirement age, or later, or dead.

The special relationships I've had in my life with cousins and others have grown up with have become distant, more temporary. Fleeting encounters at weddings or on holiday's. Both because people have moved away, and people are busy with their own lives. Relationships change over time.

I'm 41, and I go to the dentist literally twice a month because my teeth are quite literally falling out. I often wondered when I was a little kid why people needed false teeth? Aand now I face the seemingly eventual prospect of false teeth myself. I use toothache remedies far more often than is recommended on the boxes.

I asked my dentist if he could just sever and cauterize the main nerves so I don't have to feel dental pain as they decay one by one. He said 'pain serves a purpose', which is true, without the pain I would pay him less and visit him less often.

Still I have no plans for the future. What do I do with the 20+ odd years left in my life? I'm shut out of most of the usual pursuits of NT's; like wealth, luxury vacations, fame, status or power, sexual conquests ect, ect. I'm just me, and its not much of anything.

When I was a child I had such a charisma for life, I had all kinds of fun. I used to follow the garbage truck around on my bike because I was fascinated about what they did, how the compactor on the back of the truck worked, how much it could hold and where it might go afterwards. As an adult of 41, garbage trucks don't fascinate me anymore. I collected bottlecaps as a kid, no one ever understood why, (notibly I didn't know about Aspergers until age 35), and I collected every different kind of cap that I could find as a child. Used, discarded beverage caps don't interest me anymore at 41. Same could be said of almost anything I found special in childhood.

So without making this post a full essay on how life has become dull, how do Aspie's grow old gracefully? What can older more experienced Aspie's tell me to expect for the balance of my time on this planet?

Repent, your post is poignant and honest. Your relationships losses due to life's changing aspect are similar for most of us; they are true losses.

Please forgive me for singling out a part of your post, which I'm pretty sure is not the nexus of what you're saying. But I've read this sort of statement here on WP often enough that I want to comment on it.

I am an aging NT who lives a rather quiet unremarkable life, as do the vast majority of the many folks I know, most of whom are NTs. Very, very few of the people I know and no one in my personal circle "pursue wealth, luxury vacations, fame, status or power, sexual conquests ect".

We are pursuing health (poorly), financial solvency (futilely); and we save and in-debt ourselves to visit out of state family rarer than we'd prefer to be able to see them, on our vacation time. Fame, status & power? No interest, we just hope to keep jobs as long as we live, because we have no cushion for our futures. Sexual conquests? I'm just not seein' it. And guess what; we think we're doing OK.

Who are these shining, obnoxious NTs you refer to? They're simply not the norm I'm seeing and rubbing elbows with. For example, have 160 co-workers and only one might be as you describe.

I turn 53 next month and can relate to some health problems. All my life i've enjoyed my solitary walks but now am suffering from Morton's neuroma which gives me terribly foot pain and restricts my walking. However, i don't give up and am tinkering around to make appropriate orthotics which should enable me to walk a bit longer. Oh, and sometimes i feel bugged by my gray hair and beard. Also, there's a nasty backache every now and then but i can get along with it.

Other than that, nothing has changed. I love my cats and living with them, nature, my books, hobbies, computer, and so on. Few months ago i purchased a kindle and was so excited with this gadget -- just enthusiastic.

For me, aging is restricted to physical decay. But my mind works fine, so does my imagination and overall well-being. Yet today i find great pleasure in many little things like snow, the smell of coffee, reading, tinkering around, the antics of my cats, or being close to water. Just walking along a shore.

Perhaps you could find some new areas of interest to rekindle your enthusiasm?

i am very thankful that i have some good health left. oh sure, i have arthritic aches and pains and my low back shouts at me a lot, but i can still do pushups and crunches and chin-ups and bike up and down hills, which keeps me relatively young. the OP mentions having to go to the dentist twice a month, i sure wish i could afford that, but without health/dental coverage dentists are a costly luxury. since i can't afford said services i do what i can to pamper the teeth i have left, which means no sugary gooey sweet foods or sodas, brushing and flossing often, and keeping well-hydrated with water. still i have a recurring infection in my gums that is bugging me. i dread having to go into debt yet again to visit the dentist, they always end up dunning me for $$$$ that i don't really have to spare. my late father lost all his teeth in his 30s, he was diabetic, so i am thankful that is one more thing i don't yet have. i can live without a sex partner thanks to porn and modern silicon booty part technology, and i learned how to be my own best friend, so i can make do without a mate. i have very vivid fantasies about the love of my life who exists as a fully fleshed-out virtual mate in my fantasy world, which i immerse myself in from time to time. i am often absorbed right here on WP and when i'm not "here" i'm busy trying to catalog and transcribe and restore and archive my collection of countless thousands of old recordings. that will take me the rest of my life, i am sure. i sure hope they don't all end up at the goodwill to molder and eventually be dumped into the landfill, after all my work on 'em. sic transit gloria, i suppose. anyways, when god calls me home, i will be long-ready and packed. until then, i keep myself in bouyant mood by hoping always for the next pleasant novelty, and with lots of good humor that i find all over the place, as well as by having realized in my middle age that everything important that i always wanted exists right in my own backyard.

I so identify with this issue at the moment, so much so that a few weeks ago I started a thread about it here at:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp4204047.html#4204047 titled "Closer to death? 45+ Growing old/identity crisis?", which I began by saying:

I went through a stage like that when I hit forty something - I think 44 or 45. I thought it'd be permanent. But recently, oddly enough, I have renewed my art work somehow, though I am not really sure how.
So between tea, good food, my fantasy world, peace and quiet, the occasional drink, and scraping along with the remainder of parenting I manage to do for my kid; my time spent doing art work keeps me feeling happy once in a while. In between, there is a cycling into darkness but as I've suffered from depression on and off my whole life I am sort of resigned. Oh, assiduously avoiding nasty people and situations is now my rule rather than my wish. I have a goal but I don't know if it is possible. I just decided I'd head for it and see what happens.
Courage, and WP helps too. There are some comments on here from some really wise nice people that help so much I can't really describe.

Thanks all for the kind replies;

1) New Hobbies -Check!
2) Resignation of the decay of my body- Check!
3) Purpose and meaning for the balance of my life...

Still need some help with number 3!! !

I wonder why at 52 I have a much more positive outlook on life than the original poster? Sure, we share dental problems but apart from that I'm physically fit and I'm having fun. I still have a full head of hair but I resigned myself to turning gray a long time ago and I'm certainly not vain enough to dye it, as for the spectacles, I just accept it and now reaching out to the bedside table for my glasses seems just as natural as breaking wind.

Aspies get old along with the rest of humanity, but with that old age comes experience and knowledge which will make our passage through life a hell of a lot easier. If at twenty two I knew the things which I know now at fifty two I would have had an amazing time.

Relax.

Vanilla_Slice

I'm fifty now an I'll do anything to stay as young and healthy as possible.
It happens to be one of my special interests, I look a whole lot younger and I hope it'll stay that way.

I get fright for my life when i think about oldage.
Atleast now i can take a walk down the mall or checkout the market....but what will i do in oldage..
i definitely dont want to live a empty, alone, sad lonely old age just like my youth.
Often i imagine sitting in a house, far away with just a cat for company....
Even now when im in early 30's the phone never rings, no one comes across, there are no functions or parties to attend
imagine the same in old age..

^^^
my allergy to cat dander prevents me from turning into an old cat auntie so i will just be alone with my fantasies. but if sony makes a aibo cat, i might become a robocat auntie with a trailer full of the things metallically mewing all about me.

ouinon, how is bald going for you? Five years ago, I was newly divorced dad and beginning to date again at the tender age of 55. I was dating through match.com and I always made the first date with the lovely 50-somethings as a lunch meeting where I could escape without much risk. There were a few escapes used! One date showed up bald, on crutches, sporting a cast on her foot, and a large tatto on her arm. She was a real tough looking lady. I swallowed my "good taste" and tried to dismiss my first impressions. I'm glad I did. We had a wonderful lunch and she's now sitting across the room from me. We've been married for four years!

How is growing old going for me? A lot better than I would have guessed. My body has aches and pains, most from when I was an overactive teenager. They've been constant "friends" throughout my life. I've kept myself fit over the years by finding activities that I found interesting - bicycling, old-guy basketball, karate, snow shoeing, gardening, hiking.

I've never been very social and that hasn't changed. I do play in a community band once a week and that is about right for me. Not too much and not too little.