Anyway -- I tend to talk too long -- I got my master's and started my doctorate program. Unfortunately, I had some major ethical problems (something that was recurrent throughout my experimental psychology/neuroscience studies) with a demand by my advisor that I do exploratory brain surgery on animals that were not anaesthetized. I refused, released my lab animals (pigeons at the time), and left the university, never to return. Further, from that point on, I became vegetarian and have been so up to today, and that's around 35 years now. I won't get all preachy about it, but it's my firm conviction that I chose the correct path in this instance, even if it ended my neuroscience career. (Looking back, I think it was the best outcome, even if I do feel awful about having given up on a goal I had set for myself.
On how I became an artist: It turned out around this time that I realized my daughter needed to be home-schooled for a while due to some problems she was having due to her rather severe dyslexia, so being a single parent (her father died when she was 7), I realized I needed to be able to work from home. Soooooo, with no training, I started making papier mache animal sculptures. I chose this path because while she was still at school, she brought home a school project, a half of a milk jug, covered with newspaper and glue and painted. That little thing inspired me so much that I began right away learning to sculpt with papier mache. I did that for quite a few years and made a pretty good living doing so. Some years later, I switched to ceramic clay and have been doing it -- and doing paintings as well -- ever since. I did quit doing the paintings only very recently because I just found it too stressful, and I did prefer working with clay anyway -- and still do to this day.
Ok, on being old again now: For you younger people, it really, really isn't as awful as it may seem -- really! At 79, I feel physically fit and strong as I felt a couple of decades ago at least. I'm sure things have slowed down a bit more than I'm aware, but I still do pretty much what I've always done. My clay work is quite physically demanding (not so much as it was when I did the large sculptures, but I quit doing those for another reason besides weight, etc.), I walk at a quite fast pace at least a mile and a half a day, most often more. I do strength-maintenance exercises daily, do physically demanding gardening daily -- because I love it! -- I eat well, focusing on getting enough protein and calories especially.
My interests are wide, and for the most part, my mind is the same, although I do admit there I have mostly good days but sometimes some "slow" ones. I especially forget what I was about to do -- all the time!
And all these things are just normal things that an active person of any age would be doing without thinking about their age. Oh, I do have a tiny bit of arthritis in my fingers, but they don't ever, ever hurt, just look funny. Also, speaking of looks, that's the one thing that is absolutely different! I think I've mentioned it already, but it deserves being mentioned again, I guess. I look old! It's that simple. I used to be vain, so it serves me right! Now I'm still learning to accept that it's okay to look old; I'm still the same person, so it really doesn't matter. And I do struggle with keeping my weight up, too, which I hear is a common problem with old people. But I've already mentioned that. I need to make myself eat enough food each day.
Medically, I guess you could call me lucky, but I like to think it's because of the lifestyle I live, I have had no major age-related problems -- so far, anyway. I injured both a shoulder and a hip somehow but refused medical intervention and chose my own physical therapy instead, and the range of motion in each is a very little reduced, but it's no problem at all.
Okay, that's enough story-telling and bragging, I guess. It makes me think of my great grandfather, whom I used to spend hours at a time listening to him talk about the old times. Those are some of my best life memories, in fact. He was born in the late 1800s and lived to 98 (my great grandmother lived to 97), so I was lucky enough to know them both very well and have them be a very important part of my life. My daughter even got to meet her great-great grandmother shortly before she died.
