Old age ain't for sissies

Old age ain't for sissies. This is my almost 90 year old father in laws favorite expression and I fully agree with it. Compared to life after 40 or 50 under 30 is a breeze so when people check out under 30 I totally understand. I was almost one of those and I never expected to live past 25 anyway because I was a mountain climber, rock climber, glider flier, dirt motorcycle rider and often dated dangerous women in my 20s. So I was actually sort of hoping to die before 25 so I didn't have to deal with the insanity of ever living to be over 30 myself.

However, when my first child was born in 1974, a son, I had to rethink everything and make it a serious point to stay alive whatever the cost to bring him to adulthood and to a better life than I had known growing up. It wasn't that I had a bad life growing up. In many ways I had a very good life because my birth parents never divorced and they were relatively happy together and it showed so I was relatively happy too. However, by age 21 all bets were off after I got excommunicated from the cult I was raised in and all my friends from all over earth were told not to ever speak to me again. So I contemplated suicide for a few years and was generally sort of self destructive in some ways until my son was born and then I changed because being a father was actually, outside of dating girls, one of the first things in my life that made much sense to me.

By the time I was 29 I was a single father of a three year old son. By the time I was 32 I remarried a woman with two kids around my sons age who had divorced the same year as I and was my same age.

However, until I was in my mid 40s up to 50 I had no idea what "HARD" was. Living through my early 40s was an impossible task. So after I married a third time and couldn't get full custody of my then 5 year old daughter I almost died from my internalized anger from that craziness. From that I lost all faith in our legal system in regard to family law. To me, it will only be a joke and a pretense to embicility! At that time I did not know that a good father has only a 15% chance of custody no matter what kind of illegal behavior ones ex is engaged in that is harmful to the child. Ridiculous!

Well. I survived my 40s obviously and my 50s have been the happiest time in my life!
I turn 60 this month. The only problem is that my male friends and relatives seem to be either all dying or getting seriously injured from things like skiing or horsebackriding. So most men who are good friends or relatives are dead or injured now. Immortality is nice but the reality is if you get injured and you are over 50 it takes a really long time to heal and some wounds don't ever heal right.

So once again, "Old age ain't for sissies!"