What is old?

Using myself as a laboratory specimen, I will document the changes that age brings to me. I wasn't quite so interested in my upwardly mobile physical development from birth to 55; it was a happy and productive rise, for which I am grateful. After 55, however, many small things have abandoned their posts. Little tendons and bones and muscles give up the good fight unless they are babied and cajoled and treated with respect. These changes to my earthly self, whether slow or fast to develop, grab my attention because they are annoying. I am not rolling along with power boosts, but with power shorts. As I notice this trend, I try to think of compensations somewhere else in my package: maybe I'm getting wiser? kinder? funnier? wealthier? happier? I suspect its not a clear-cut nor guaranteed trade, handing off physical strength and mobility for a sage persona. And I'm positive that I'm not alone in having noticed that things change when you get old. If you feel you are proving the exception to this rule, please don't tell me you're 80 years old and just swam the Pacific; besides making you a braggart, it could attract the attention of the god's and earn you a compensatory humdinger of an old age development. Just keep it to yourself, but stay with me and lets find our way together to that other part of our life. I can certainly use the help.