Some time ago, the Daytona Beach News-Journal had a page one, above the fold story about 5 women who served in the military years and years ago.  Prominent on the page accompanying the story was a group picture of the five of them taken recently (in their 70s and beyond), and above that group picture were individual pictures of them while they were in the military.  What a startling change, but then an expected change.  You could see some of each of those younger women in the faces of each today, but clearly they have aged.

The aging process on our faces and bodies is something we all know will happen, but think somehow will never come.  We secretly believe we can will it not to happen to us.  Yet even as we believe or hope that our stop light will be effective, we can see those changes subtly happening each time we look into the mirror.  A small wrinkle here, a bit of a sag there as mother time paints old age on our faces and sculpts our bodies.  Aging is not only a process each of us face, it is a fact that our government is facing as well.

Thanks to medical science and our medical systems we are living longer.  The average age we are living to is slowly creeping up, and those of us are living longer and longer.  The number of people who will live to see their 100th birthday is going to grow significantly in the coming decades.  There is much talk about how government is going to handle this problem (yes, it is a problem as the longer we live, the likelihood of making demands on the medical system grows).  Like me, I'm sure you have heard a great deal about this and will hear more.

But there is another issue that I have not heard addressed.  I previously wrote about the lack of training, the lack of classes to teach people getting close to 65 how  to make the best of seniorhood.  The one exception to this is those investment firms who want to manage your finances so you can have that idyllic life seen in their commercials.  Other than that, you are pretty much on your own.  What you learn is by observing those seniors who are retired.  In watching them, you make mental note of what and how they do things and decide for yourself what parts you will incorporate into your retirement years and which ones you hope to avoid.

Well, living to age 80, 90, 100 or beyond, assuming you reach those ages, offers even less in training.  There are even fewer role models.  This means you are pretty much on your own to define your life style.  Also, the infirmaries that you might have to face in seniorhood may well be even more prolonged in the coming decades as medical science finds treatments that will keep you alive longer but without any improvement in the quality of life.

This whole thing about living even longer is daunting, taking you into uncharted waters.  But in looking at those pictures of those military women now gives one hope, regardless of their age or ours.