If you had asked me to say a few words about the people in age, I think I would almost immediately pull up a photo of my grammy on my phone.

Wrinkly skin, wobbly joints and crispy bones, is probably the first thing that comes to our minds at the mention of an old person. When I was 7, double digits was just another compartment to my train of thoughts and up until last year, a 60-year-old woman sounded just the fantasy as she did back when I believed in the talking elves. However, last semester I took a course in psychology which happened to cover a handful of psychological aspects of gerontology.

Now, in our culture, old age is associated with loss and decay. That was essentially what I thought when I first walked into that class. First, you watch your muscle lose its tone as those five senses diminish one by one. Second is when you watch your friends die off, which leaves us with the third and ultimate, the loss of life itself. Frankly, it was all I had ever been taught and with no holds barred, precisely what I have only seen.

But after a few classes into “Psychology and Ageing,” I realized the 60s have a lot more going on than we had presumed. So I decided to pay a little more attention to my grammy. One week into that, and these are my observations:

The stairs get steeper every day. The phone feels heavier than it used to. Even the trees look further away. Frankie’s pizza doesn’t taste the same anymore. Just a third of a mozzarella stick could send her in for a ride to the hospital. Healthy food stands no longer a concern, and gorging E numbers as many as she can have become crucial to her life expectancy. Occasional lapses in memory might leave her blank from time to time. Her sense of humor got better with age. She could walk the beach in a swimsuit, stretched over her loose belly and still get compliments. No peer pressure. There is nothing that she has to do, it’s only if she wants to do. No obligation. She can get extremely cranky sometimes but cool off just as quick. She is not always welcome. Sometimes she can be the object of pity while other times she is just an “old bag.”

So, is that all there is to this phase of life? As a matter of fact, there is more.

New research has revealed that the happiest people are the people over 60. Surprised? Yeah, I was too. Apparently, as they begin to age, their worries age too. Other than the age-worn faces and the bodies, there isn’t much in there for them to worry about. There is no work pressure. No social repression. You don’t have to look your best all the time. In fact, you could go around butt naked and not draw any attention. However, there will be times when people wouldn’t acknowledge your presence. There will be moments when you would have become invisible. But none of that matters as you advance further into this phase. As days go by, you learn to accept that death is imminent. You stop living in the future. You become more involved in the present. Initially, the loss of careers, status and your near and dear ones may be very painful. But with time, you learn to let go. You learn to love yourself more and more.

Although for some, the process of letting go stays on to be a struggle, for many others it simply means more room to breathe and less to agonize over. They begin to look at life differently. The feeling of minor emptiness could surface every now and then but the sweetness of freedom makes them forget all about it. The loss of memory may have an effect to some degrees, but the part where they get to go to bed with less to fret over, trumps everything else.

So it appears, that what had been known to be the end of life is actually more of a beginning. If I didn’t know any better, I would probably still be dreading over this chapter of life. Now, I look forward to it. I look forward to embarking on this journey of life, a journey so unique, a journey that could finally free me from all the weight I will be harboring on my shoulders for the next 40 years!