While doing street photography on the 8th of February, 2023 (it was also a day when I wrote this text), one old lady commented that I was walking in summer clothes in frigid temperatures by rhetorically asking, “What does it mean to be young?”
Firstly, she asked me if I wasn’t cold. I replied that the temperature outside (2 degrees Celsius [35,6 degrees Fahrenheit]) was OK for me. Then, she asked the title question of what it means to be young. I did not know what to answer her because I did not belong to youth anymore. Indeed, I do not feel like a teenager anymore. Of course, the lady was old. She could easily be my grandmother. Undoubtedly, for her, I was young. Still, I replied to her, “Have a nice day.” I moved forward to take another street photo in Warsaw. While writing about all these things, I reminded myself that the old lady commented on it while exercising at the outdoor gym.
I hope to be as fit at the same age as her. I must admit I genuinely admire active people, no matter how old they are.
I have tried many sports throughout my whole life. For today, I mainly walk and stretch my muscles by doing the so-called “dead hangs.” I hope to keep my body as young as possible by doing intermittent fasting and exposing my body to cold. Still, I do not do all these things to be young. I do them because I want to be healthy. I know that becoming older is an inseparable issue in our lives. I want to get older with dignity, without artificial tricks like plastic surgery. Money is not the issue in this case. I admire people who are getting older gracefully, without any strange surgeries. I do not plan to do such plastic surgery.
