I thought long and hard about this and to be honest this is one subject that I absolutely dreaded at one time. As I said in my previous post, I just can’t imagine not being here anymore. I won’t know anything. I will simply not exist! As I approach 60 years in a month, lately that thought has been creeping up more and more. That is the reason I threw caution to the wind and said, “Go get your masters! It’s now or never!” I want to grow older doing something positive and making a name for myself! I want to be known for helping others and hopefully this degree will help me enter into more rooms that I would probably not be asked to enter.

Just preparing for aging is a task in itself and “preparation planning should be performed before later life and during the young or middle-age years”, Solhi, M., Pirouzeh, R., Zanjari, N., & Janani, L. (2022). Dimensions of Preparation for Aging: A Systematic Review. I really found this article a great read and I learned a few things I would like to prepare myself for as God allows me to grow older. One preparation is my mindset and hopefully being able to still talk, recognize my loved ones and understand things going on around me. Second is my finances. I want to be able to take care of me and not be placed somewhere less than what I am used to living like. Lastly, for the sake of this paper, I want to prepare for when I am no longer able to be socially active. I know it’s a tall order but I will miss certain things as I age. I love to dance and that is one big thing I want to do in my 90s. LOL!

I had a talk with my son about some things but now I know I will have to sit down and make sure to let him know that I don’t want to be a burden on him and his wife. That’s why I want to be financially set enough to go into a place where my dignity will still be in tact and passionate workers with great work ethics will be there to make sure I am well taken care of. I don’t dread getting old though because I have accepted that it is what it is. I do want to make sure that when I no longer am able to work that I have done all I can helping God’s people and done right in His Eyes!

I had the privilege of looking at the salutogenic model approach and found that I did actually like the idea of looking at what keeps a person healthy instead of what makes a person sick. I was able to look at how society approaches the aging African American male with traditional healthcare using a pathogenic lens which focuses on risk factors, illness and lower life expectancy and how “Salutogenesis introduces a paradigm that requires a perceptual change towards what creates health and how health can be facilitated”.  Betsy Seah and Wenru Wang, Chapter 23 SHAPE: A Healthy Aging Community Project Designed Based on the Salutogenic Theory (2021). This article actually had me look at some things I am not doing to keep me healthy and living a longer life vs what I am doing that is helping me. I stopped smoking over 4 years ago and I feel great. There is some things that I think about that may have cut off some years but I do my best to think positive and do great in life “just in case”.

All in all, I have a pretty positive attitude and I have a network of people I talk with that will help me get back on track should I start being too negative or going down a road that they know isn’t me. I am grateful that and this article to really see what I think about me aging and how I want that to really look. I have a new granddaughter that need her POPPA and I want to see who this beautiful being becomes. There is so much I want to do so growing old is just going into the 4th quarter with a winning mindset. I just want to appreciate God’s Gift of Life!