Does anyone feel old and useless with age?

I didn't even feel that useful when I was working. I was a programmer/analyst, and 1/2 the time people didn't use the stuff I wrote for them. I didn't care. I did what my bosses and users asked, and I was getting paid. You're only in your mid-60s. That's not especially old—work on improving yourself. Read more, learn a language or an instrument, learn to draw or paint, etc. Do something that interests you. If nothing interests you, you're depressed. See a doctor. But start working on improving yourself. You don't need to do anything external to feel useful.

I used to fill a room with easy laughter,
My footsteps quick, my dreams too wide to keep.
Now silence follows closely ever after,
And nights grow long before I fall asleep.

The photographs still smile from dusty shelves,
Their colors fading just as mine have done.
The strangers in those frames were once ourselves,
Forever young beneath a kinder sun.

The telephone has learned to never ring.
The mailbox waits with nothing new to say.
The birds still greet the sweetness of the spring,
But no one seems to notice I still stay.

My hands remember every face they held—
A baby's cheek, a lover's weathered skin.
Those precious moments time itself dispelled,
Leaving only echoes deep within.

I speak aloud to empty chairs at night,
As though the ones I loved might answer me.
The darkness listens with a patient quiet,
Returning only endless memory.

The mirror shows a face I scarcely know,
Its lines engraved by sorrow, hope, and grace.
Inside, the child I was still whispers low,
Yet cannot find that youthful, fearless place.

The world walks faster than these aging bones.
It hardly sees the weary or the slow.
A crowded street can hold a thousand souls,
And still become the loneliest place I know.

I do not fear the moment I must leave;
I've made my peace with endings long before.
I fear becoming someone none will grieve,
A name erased from every heart once more.

So if you pass an old and quiet face,
Don't see the years that bent their weary frame.
See every dream, each love, each small embrace,
And speak to them as though you knew their name.

@danyysienna111 beautiful!💕🙏

@larryg333 thank you

I'm 73 and feel the same way. My kids and grandkids don't want me around. No friends no family around they live in a different city. I'm always alone. I'm married but it's like being alone.

@amalfi1279 amen sister. You’re not alone

@sue -- Hi!

Please get the August calendar out... RIGHT NOW. Plug in... NOW... several "do-nothing days." Promise us that you'll commit to ABSOLUTELY NOTHING else on those days. OK?

OK... you're DONE.

Have a great week!

/LarryG

Hello;
Jen Wilkin has written a book on aging and our attitudes toward aging; the world’s attitude and how we should really be thinking and doing in senior years. It’s on Amazon; Dust to Dust by Jen Wilkin.

@binw
“Love is the threshold where divine and human presence ebb and flow into each other." John O’Donohue

The love we express for our family, for our friends etc is as said, it’s the threshold where Divine and human presence are felt.

I was laying in bed this morning at 6:00 am and thinking is this what old age feels like, back ache, shoulder ache, kink in my neck etc., I thought get the hell out of bed and get ready to go to the woodlot, cutting and gathering with my son. I know I will be as tired when I get back but spending the day with my son in the quiet of the wood is terrific. I might not be as physically able as I was, but I still can help, even when I can’t do that just being there and giving advice etc is fulfilling in of itself. My point is we all have something to give even if it’s years of experience that those who can appreciate it, will.