How Do You Know if You're Elderly?

A friend of mine recently posted a question on facebook. It looked like this.

'At what age does a person become elderly?' Please answer honestly and don't think you'll offend me. Also - please answer as if you were writing a news article. That would eliminate 'You're only as old as you feel etc.' Just curious. Thanks! :-)

I wrote what immediately popped into my head given the limited facebook space. Of course, I had to add my signature bit of humour at the end. Here's my comment.

"Not a news article and not personal, just some thoughts after observing "elderly" people. You are elderly when life becomes a chore...when you no longer take joy in small things...when you become cynical and feel the need to criticize and complain about everything...when the word "fun" is no longer part of your vocabulary...when you think about death more often than you think about the rest of your life...most of all, you are elderly when you have seen the same fads and fashion trends for the fourth time. You are not elderly however, if you still fit into your plaid bell bottom pants."

I considered my response for the rest of the day and felt somewhat dissatisfied. There had to be more to this question than could be answered by a mere five lines. I headed for dictionary.com where I was surprised to discover the following definitions for "elderly"..."quite old, past middle age, geriatric". The thesaurus in turn gave me this list: "aged, ancient, been around, declining, gray, hoary, long in tooth, lot of mileage, no spring chicken, old, olden, on last leg, over the hill, retired, tired, venerable."

Wow! That sounded depressing if not offensive. After further "googling", I discovered that "elderly" is no longer a politically correct term...understandable in view of the definitions. In fact, the word "older" is suggested as an alternative. That could explain why some people consider anyone "older" than they as "elderly". I'm not certain that I agree.

Are you elderly when you no longer have an interest in socializing or having thoughtful conversations with people? Are you elderly when you start looking at senior residences? Are you elderly when you anger easily? Are you elderly when everything was better "back in the day"? Are you elderly when you have no more hopes and dreams? Are you elderly when your bucket list runs out? Are you elderly when you've resigned yourself to your circumstance? Are you elderly when you no longer keep up with technology or pop culture? Are you elderly when you are no longer spontaneous? Is elderly determined by age, wrinkles or hair colour?

 I don't think you're "elderly" because you're old. You can be elderly at any age. I think "elderly" is a behaviour, a frame of mind, not an outward appearance. In fact, many of the cliches about older people  ("you're as old as you feel" and so on ) might indeed be accurate.
After thinking, researching, and some conversation with friends, I decided to stand by my original thoughts on what is "elderly". I think that it nicely encapsulates all of my ideas.

"You are elderly when life becomes a chore...when you no longer take joy in small things...when you become cynical and feel the need to criticize and complain about everything...when the word "fun" is no longer part of your vocabulary...when you think about death more often than you think about the rest of your life...most of all, you are elderly when you have seen the same fads and fashion trends for the fourth time. You are not elderly however, if you still fit into your plaid bell bottom pants."

I felt validated while looking at this past week's Giant Tiger flyer. This fashion trend has now occurred for only the second time in my lifetime. I'm happy to announce therefore, that by my own definition, I am not yet "elderly". What about you?

Bell bottoms, not necessarily plaid