Uh-oh. Millennials are worried about what age they will be when they stop feeling young. Ho boy! In an article in the Wall Street Journal, the millennial author ponders reaching the decade when he/she will notice signs of aging. On the same day, I saw an article titled “At what age do we start feeling old?”

Lots to unpack here. First, the oldest millennials are in their early 40s, so the woman pondering aging must be referring the effects of the 4^th decade. You need glasses for reading? You don’t have as much stamina as you used to have? Your muscles ache for longer periods after strenuous exercise or physical labor? Hair going grey? Memory not as sharp as it used to be? Need a nap by midafternoon? Having a hard time hearing conversations in a noisy restaurant? Hmmm.

Yep, baby boomers know all about it. We’ve been fighting back against the aging process for 3 decades or more. Not sure this will make an older millennial feel any better, but there’s a difference between experiencing the effects of aging and having a mindset in which you honestly believe you’ve aged. Many boomers will tell you that they did not really begin to feel old until they were in their 60s.

Yes, it’s harder to get up off the floor if you’ve been exercising or playing with a grandchild. So what. Moving slower had its advantages. For one thing, you’re less likely to fall if you ease yourself out of bed or injure something during overly aggressive pickleball action. (Sidenote: Not taking up this popular game because media is reporting that many people are getting injured because they think they are still 30 years old.)

Let’s accept the fact that by age 50 or 60 you will have admitted you are no longer young. How does that change anything? You know you’re old but you don’t need to behave as though you are an old person. It’s an idiotic cliché with a grain of truth to it, but you are as young as you feel. And that’s something to keep in mind while we let others write articles about the signs of aging. In other words, fageddaboutit!

Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. You can also visit his author page here. His newest mystery novel, Rio Puerco Demise is available on Amazon. His first mystery novel, Head Above Water, is also available on Amazon. But that’s not all. You can also purchase the Best of BoomSpeak on Amazon.

Of all the hints for maintaining your health as you age, getting more sleep is one of the most prominent. And the most confounding. Eat the right foods: whole grains, Mediterranean diet. Exercise, or at least walk every day. Drink plenty of water. If you’re thirsty it’s too late. And the list will end with the injunction to get enough sleep – they usually recommend seven to eight hours a night.

Sure, if you’re propping your eyelids open at 2:00 A.M. maybe you could ratchet it back to midnight. But what if you have trouble falling asleep? Or, worse yet, you fall asleep easily but wake up in the middle of the night and toss and turn for two hours or more? Listen to the experts and you’ll soon feel guilty about your bad sleep “habits.”

I fall into that last category. Several nights each week, I will wake up after about three hours of sleep and the brain gets going and before I know it I’m wide awake for a couple hours. In all my reading about how to solve this problem the only item that seemed to help a little was to get devices away from the bed. I started putting my cell phone and iPad in another room and found I woke up a little less often. But it didn’t really solve the problem.

Then I happened upon a little historical tidbit that I probably should have known all along. Before the invention of electricity, people mostly went to sleep when it got dark and left the bed when it got light in the morning. But it didn’t work exactly that smoothly. Especially in the winter, when nights were long, folks would wake up in the middle of the night, light the candles or gaslights, and do some reading, or maybe some household chores, or maybe that was their time for sex. Without the constant reminders to get more sleep, they didn’t feel guilty at all. That was just the way things were.

So you know what to do: sure, keep the electronic devices away from your bed; it can’t hurt. But if you wake up in the middle of the night, do something. Empty the dishwasher, read a book. Whatever you do, you’ll feel good about having used the time more productively than if you were watching the clock in bed and worrying about how unhealthy it is to be awake. You might even be glad that you got something done, and sleep peacefully till morning.

Norma Libman is a journalist and lecturer who has been collecting women’s stories for more than twenty years. You can read the first chapter of her award-winning book, Lonely River Village, at NormaLibman.com.

I moved into a 55+ condominium after my wife died. Nice place. I’m in a quiet courtyard with eight other units surrounding a tiny patch of grass. A guy also named Joe lives directly across from me. I like to think we guard the drawbridge for the six widows in the remaining units in our castle-keep. I’m not sure who we’re guarding these ladies from. And actually, the more I think about it, I might need to be guarded from them. I keep getting presents from them. Think — your cat dropping off mice at your doorstep. Casseroles, cookies, potted begonia plants on the stoop. There’s something new practically every day. In some ways it feels kind of nice to be so noticed and appreciated. But then I remembered a joke.

A lady of a certain age, wandering past the reception desk in a Catskill hotel, spots a newcomer. A man. She stops to engage him in conversation.

“So, you’re new here,” she begins, “where are you coming from?”

The man chuckles, “Prison.”

“How long were you there?” she pries.

He furls his brow. “Twenty years.”

“And why were you in prison?” the lady continues, eyes fluttering innocently.

“I murdered my wife.”

“Oh, so you’re single.”

Reminds me to not feel flattered considering the male/female demographics of us seniors. It’s probably more about ‘supply and demand’ learned so long ago in college. There aren’t many knights in the castle grounds at our age and it’s not our rusty armor that’s creaking. Still, it’s not all bad to be noticed. Maybe the ladies are just being friendly with a new neighbor. That’s sweet. Or maybe I’m a fourth for canasta. Or someone to call on to change a light bulb. Who knows what the draw is beyond the excitement of a new neighbor who wears pants?

So, I enjoy the attention…to a point. Because as often as not, along with chip dip, I also get lots of instructions on ‘how we do things around here.’ Who knew you should crush boxes for the trash containers to conserve space for all the others? And all trash has to be in bags not just dumped in loose. And of course, (this one is logical) you can’t just leave your port in the communal garage open in case you’re going to go out later. Ha! New place. New rules. I’m the new kid in the classroom.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. In, Pinata Belly, and other tales of later love, Novara reminds of the limits and ultimate hope for online dating sites.