I am the caboose on the Baby Boomer Train. I think about this now that I have turned sixty. This whole Boomer thing, the largest generational group in the history of this country. It is the conversation of every senior living community. BOOMERS. How are we going to serve the Boomers, and meet the demand because there are a LOT of them. And it is a different group of elders (I know, I used that word) than generations before of the same age. Everywhere I look there is an article about Active Aging. There is an abundance of advice on how to age well. My grandmother looked like grandmothers looked (in my experience) when I was growing up. In all my memories of her, her hair was gray, and then white and fluffy. She was full figured and wore comfortable polyester pants and lived a quiet life - except when visiting with all the grandchildren. When she hugged me I was a captive in her bosom and I felt loved and safe. She made me want to be a good girl. She cooked and cleaned and took care of day-to-day things. My mother on the other hand, her daughter, at age eighty, wears stylish linen and cotton blend clothes, layered and accessorized with earrings and bracelets. In fact we share clothes! She is a widow living her own active life, taking classes, participating in a book club, hangs out at the local bookstore, and so much more. We live in the same town now and when I walk into a venue, they know her, and I, who have been here longer, feel like a visitor. She is an advertisement for Active Aging.

This only makes me pay more attention to how I am aging. I am thankful for the attention that is paid now to the aging population. We can thank AARP for much of that. They were founded in 1958 and have advocated for seniors for over 65 years. Voting opportunities for seniors in nursing homes, more information provided with drug prescriptions, the Retirement Equity Act in 1984 to help provide women with financial security and advocating for cost-of-living adjustments to social security. I read about this in my own copies of AARP Magazine and AARP Bulletin and the information resonates and is important to me.

I want to be the safe hug for the younger generation, and I want to be really cool too. I want to be healthy and active and have a voice that makes a difference for the generations to follow.  My Aging Well may look very different from my cohorts’ Aging Well because we are unique in our experiences and how the current events at any given time in our Boomer existence affected us. But we all have more choices than ever in regard to the places we live and the activities that we engage in. It seems to me that so many people are focused on how to serve us, we have it pretty good, whether we are the first car or the caboose. This caboose will do all that she can to age well.