英語訪談對話 370 Ageing

　　Vivian: I was 80 years old on November 3rd, 2004.

　　Adrienne: Wow! 80! What does it feel like to be 80?

　　Vivian: It's a little inconvenient because my mind didn't turn 80 but my body did and I find it sometimes my mind follows my body too! And it's hard to be as quick as I used to be and I always want to do more, now than I able to do. I can't do what I used to do when I was younger.

　　Adrienne: Oh, that's disappointing and probably a little frustrating.

　　Vivian: Very frustrating! Very frustrating! Especially when you have been active all of your life and all of a sudden things are just, have slowed down to where you can't do all those running around, flying around tasks that you used to be able to do in the morning.

　　Sometimes it takes me two days to get everything accomplished. Well those are definite disadvantages to getting older. Are there any advantages? Can you give us some hope? Yes! Yes! There is hope. You have reached an age where you understand where you have been. I'm very fortunate that I lived in the 1900's. I was born in 1924. I saw the airplane invented. I saw the beginning of penicillin. I saw the medication for polio which stopped it in its track. I saw so many things. World War II. I was married in World War II and my husband went overseas for two years during that time, and my first two years of marriage was by letters, so it was, it's a good time, 80, you look back on all those things and you're glad to be part of it. You begin to understand the changes that are taking place just as they took place when you were young, but you don't come to that realization until you become old. You don't become wiser.

　　You just become more knowledgeable.

　　Adrienne: Well, that doesn't sound so bad.