Have you ever walked from one room to the next with a great idea?

I had a great idea for a new addition to this column about the joys of getting older.

Between the time I thought of it and the time I walked to the next room, I forgot what that great idea was.

I'll get back to you.

 

“Keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles is hard work, but important.”
― Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants

 



 

The LIST......

No one told me about this. There are just so many surprises as we age, aren’t there?

It seems that the day your Medicare card arrives in the mail, something else comes with it. I’ve never actually seen this list of “ ready-to-use after age 65” statements  myself, but I’ve been exposed to enough people in this category to surmise that it does indeed exit. It has to….why else would so many older folks use them on a daily basis?

You know the ones I mean, right?

“Look how fast he’s going!! What’s the big hurry anyway??”

“Only girls wear earrings. And he needs a haircut, too.”

“Look at all those tattoos! You know what they’ll look like when they’re our age, don’t you?”

“How do you carry that purse around? I’m surprised you don’t have back problems.”

“Why can’t they have paper towels in bathrooms anymore? I hate these blower things.”

And my personal favorite:

“Why are all these people out on the roads? Isn’t it a work day? I thought there was a recession.”

And each such statement is followed with a sound that I used to think writers made up, but it actually does exist. I’ve heard it myself:

Harumph!

But to make it all the more fun, EVERY time we drive an interstate or go shopping, or need to use a public bathroom or venture forth anywhere, the applicable statement is pulled out from their wallets (behind their Medicare cards where they hide it, I guess) and used as if WE are deaf and didn’t hear it the first thousand times or so they said it.

I know, I know. I’ll be there myself soon and should have more empathy. In all fairness, it does seem to take a few years past 65 before these statements are used regularly, but they seem to catch up with everyone eventually.

You’re probably right, I should be more understanding, but in the two years until that happens, I’m taking my huge purse and going shopping. I may even speed a little along the way.

And I’m sure I’ll hit a few bathrooms while I’m out (a topic in this category for another day), and I assure you that I won’t mind those hand blowers a bit.



 The older you get, the more you tell it like it used to be.
-- Author Unknown

 

 

 

 

Looking for trouble......

You know that quirky finger move that expands your cell phone screen, the one that uses the thumb/forefinger action on the diagonal? I hear even some four-year olds have it down, no problem.

Me? Haven't mastered it yet for some reason.

Come to think of it, why would I want to make some of the images in my life bigger, anyway? Don't I have enough to grapple with, even on a good day?

Like last Friday. My accountant swore a couple of months ago that the IRS would repay me the $1500+ overpayment from the first quarter of this year. She even recounted a conversation she had with the nice person she spoke to about that money, the dollars and cents I desperately need right about now. It would only take about eight weeks, they promised.  (Stop laughing....I can hear you through my computer screen, and it isn't comical.)

I opened my mailbox and was ecstatic to get that envelope on Friday, and almost got in my car to take it to the bank right there on the spot. Wait, I thought.....I'd better open it first.

$1.35.   

Yep. Just a tad short, and it probably cost them more than that to mail the darn thing.

Then there are the two cats in my house (out of the three that grace us with their presence) who need either drops in the eye or an antibiotic down the throat a few times a day. Each. The one with the eye problem has proven to be cooperative--for the most part--but the other one? Oh, my.

Picture a baby who doesn't want that yucky orangish-yellow squash that you airplaned into his mouth, no matter what funny noises you make as you stick that spoon in his mouth. He's not falling for it. So, what does he do? He takes that tongue and pushes it right out onto the floor (and you if you sit too close), none of it reaching its destination.

I have had cats let it ooze out of the side of their mouth, or jump down and throw it up as they walk away with great dignity. But never have I seen this. I swear he morphs into a human baby as that tongue starts pushing the food out of his mouth, along with the expensive antibiotic. Fun on a Friday, I can tell you.

Oh, there was more last week, but you get the picture. We all have these days, right? Nothing even remotely looks sane for a 24 hour period, and we wonder what we did to upset the universe. All we want is for it to stop. And, at my age, I know that it has happened before, and it will certainly happen again.

So, you all go ahead and make those images in your life BIGGER. I'd like some movement like that one that diminishes the trouble that seems to find me every once in a while, so if you have any cute devices that accomplish that, let me know.

The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts.”

Bertrand Russell



All about pacing.....

It wasn't a problem for a long time.....decades, actually.


When it became a problem, I didn't recognize it for years.


When I DID recognize it, I attempted to ignore it.


Finally, I accepted it with gritted teeth.


As we age, we find that our minds can outpace rings around our energy levels. At least that's the way it's been for me. In the morning, it sounds great to plan on attending an evening gathering with friends. Sure, why not? I say when I accept the invitation. That sounds like fun, and I like the people going, so count me in.


Oops. By about 4 PM, I realize my mistake. I've worked all day, intellectually at the office and then  physically at the gym, so I'm exhausted from head to toe and back again.

I was stymied by that for a lot of years, feeling as if I was exhibiting the "stick in the mud" mentality I was so often accused of in my 20s and 30s. (For good reason at that point in time, but the person inhabiting this skin isn't the same one who left the building a long time ago and I don't  like to be reminded of those days. I get a tad cranky when I even get a whiff of that phrase today.)


But then I realized that my energy  reserves were no longer at any "stick in the mud" levels (oh, the irony of it all, right?). It wasn't that I was sticking anywhere, to anything. My body simply couldn't keep up any longer. My life has expanded in ways that are often unrecognizable to me as I have aged. I dance, I engage in interval training that involves weight lifting, I seek out new adventures every month. I'm a lot more fun and I have fun in ways that I hadn't even dreamed of when I was decades younger.


I even hate writing this. It hurts. But reality must be faced, and this is it: We have to learn to pace ourselves as we move into the latter decades. (I did NOT say as we "get old," I hope you noticed that.) What that means on a daily basis is that I must view the events of the day, and into the evening, from a longer perspective than my younger years demanded.


If I work all day, hit the gym in the afternoon, and have some writing to do at home before I slide between my sheets to read before sleep, then I can't schedule a dance lesson that particular day. Or I have to change the gym to tomorrow, and dance today. And forget going out at night if I dance OR exercise within the same 24-hour block of day. Not going to happen. 


Yes, it's a hard reality to swallow. But those of you who are younger than me, heed my words here. You may think you are immune to what all of us ultimately face, whether it's cellulite in places you never even thought about or flagging energy levels. You're not. Sure, you can pay to have the lumps removed or buy pricey energy drinks, but the reality is still evident.


Thoreau spoke of keeping pace with our companions, and something about drums. I don't need to stay abreast of those folks. It just takes more energy to keep that drummer in sight at all.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau

No, I don't want to do that......

"No.....I don't want to do that."

Sounds simple, right?  But for people-pleasers, like I once was, they are some of the hardest words to say, believe me.

No matter that I already had a full calendar on that day, if somone (anyone) indicated that they wanted me to do something, I would scramble, I would rearrange, I would inconvenience others to accomodate this latest request. The result? One person was happy, most of my friends were mad at me for changing the "yeses" I had told them the day before, and I was miserable doing things I didn't want to do.

But one of the beautiful things about getting older is that we can throw off that heavy cloak of accomodation. We probably get away with it due to society's tendency to think we don't matter anyway, so who cares if we show up or not? I hate to think that, but another thing that happens as we travel this road is that we lose our rose-colored glasses. Actually, we probably just forget where we left them.

Go to the outlet mall in Georgia? Don't think so.....riding on a bus and then tottering around with a group of hard of hearing women doesn't quite match my version of a "fun" day.  Sorry, I don't want to.

Watch your dog while you're out of town?  Last time I did that the dog refused to go out into my fenced in back yard because the grass was over 1/2 inch long. Sorry...find a kennel for your darling. I don't want to do that.

Babysit for your grandkids so you can go to the movies with your daughter? Nope....don't want to do that.  The only babysitting around here will happen when I have my own grandkids, which hasn't happened yet.

The ability to say NO with no excuses is a gift to us as we age. The people around us probably aren't having as much fun with it as we are, I realize, but they don't expect much from us anyway, remember? We're OLD.

But at least I am not pushing a stroller with your grandkids and a dog at the mall.....in Georgia.

“Don't worry about growing older or pleasing others. Please yourself.”

David Brown



Examining everything.....

The results of the examination aren't important. At least, that's what I think Socrates meant when he said the unexamined life isn't worth living. The important thing is to get out the tally sheet and take stock of what we're doing.  The planet spins away from us if we don't tote up the sums once in a while.

I waited much too long, and now have some regrets. One thing I don't want my daughter, or any young person for that matter, to do when they reach 60 is to regret anything they did....or more importantly, things they didn't do with their lives.

Such as......

I wish I had made beautiful gardens sooner.

I wish I had known that all that worrying wouldn't change a thing.

I wish I had spent more time doing nothing. Not even examining anything.

I wish I had worked harder at some things. One relationship comes quickly to mind.

I wish I had spoken up much sooner (like 50 years or so). Everywhere. About everything.

I wish I had understood that I always have the right to change my mind. And I wish I had changed it a couple of times, that's for sure.

I wish I had followed my passion for writing earlier. Many young people got a good teacher, but my voice was silent for much too long.

I wish I had smiled more. (Someone paid me the ultimate compliment the other night when he said that even though I didn't know the steps to the foxtrot yet, I had the smile down..... and that was the most important part.)

I wish I had danced even when I felt awkward and conspicuous. I know now that no one else cares how I look on the dance floor, because they're only thinking about how they look. And if they are assessing me, they need to do some totin' up themselves.


As one becomes long lived, I think we tend to become more contemplative. I surely wish it had happened sooner, though, especially now that I've reached the age when the yellow brick road ahead is shorter than the one behind. There's a lesson here for people just now travelling into adulthood, if they care to hear it. I hope they don't wait until it's nearly too late, like I did.

Of course, Socrates also said, "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing."  Go figure.

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings,

so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for."

Socrates 

Where will you wake up today?

Getting "older" in our society isn't all bad. Really. There are some great insights that come with age, especially if we are paying attention to our lives.

Let's see....

A few years ago I looked around and decided that what I was doing for a living probably wasn't making much difference to the teenagers I was teaching. In fact, I wasn't sure I WAS teaching most days, considering the silliness that those in power have decided to insert into education. And for a teacher to face herself in the mirror and grapple with that demon is heart wrenching.

I had no one at home who could pat me on the back and say, "Honey, if you want to quit and take some time to find something else, it will be OK. I'll take care of everything for us." And since teaching was my second career, I didn't have enough years to walk away with those great retirement benefits many folks hold out for as they spend every waking minute counting the minutes until their company gives them a party and waves good-bye.

I own a small house, a car, I need to eat and stay warm/cool depending on the season. I'm a basic kind of person, but the basics sure do feel good, don't they?

When I was younger, I would not have had the courage to walk out the door of that school with no benefits, no salary, and no back-up person at home to carry the slack. When I was younger, my self-image was so weak that I couldn't handle anyone thinking I was a bit crazy for taking an action that had so many negatives.  But I did it at age 55, and the feeling of strength in myself was incredible. I walked out without any job and I went home to regroup. I did get advice from someone important to me on a way to provide some income until I found out what I wanted to do when I grew up. ( Houses provide more than a roof when some extra cash is needed, I learned.)

I think that comes with age for many of us. Especially women, perhaps. (I can't speak for men and won't even try. We'll go there another day, I promise.) We have enough experience at life to know our limits and those limits grow as we age. Today I am self-employed, doing what I love, and make a living for myself in the midst of the worse recession in years.

There are other things, of course. I now dare to leave the house without make-up and sometimes my socks don't match.  I've taught my daughter if someone judges us on those kinds of things, that person needs to get a life. I've also taught her to trust herself a bit more than I ever did at her age, and to take chances sometimes. Doing what everyone else thinks you should do should be of no concern to you. Listen to advice, yes. Then chart your course, call forth your reserves of strength, and follow the yearnings of your heart.

The only life you have is the one you woke up with today. Age has taught me to cherish the days I have left and I vow to follow my own advice.


.

Losing it.....

Hair and music.  I'll wait.


OK....do you give up? I admit the connection isn't apparent. In fact, maybe there isn't any relationship at all, it's just that both things have been on my mind this week.


Getting older does that to you, it seems. Kind of like, you think of something you need to retrieve from another room, but when you get there you can't remember why you're there, standing in the middle of the room muttering to yourself. I drive a lot for my work, and have suddenly found myself (and it often DOES feel like I've been found when this happens)  "waking up" on a major road wondering WHERE THE HECK AM I GOING?? Not, oh, I forgot how to get there....I don't even remember where I was headed to begin with.


That has to be dangerous. (Note to DMV....I drive very carefully wherever it is that I'm headed. Honest.)

And whatever you do, don't interrupt me in the middle of a sentence. Break that chain of thought and it might be GONE. To be honest, as I've gotten older I sometimes lose that tenuous tether to my ideation without any interruption when I'm talking...the next thought simply floats away, out of reach, playing tag with my sanity. At least that's how it feels. My brain just leaks things out before I can finish with them. I hate it when that happens. Especially in a business meeting and I'm the one talking. Not impressive.

Oh....hair and music. I got sidetracked again, didn't I? (No, I did NOT forget what I was saying!)  Hair grows where you don't want it and never HAD hair before, and stops growing where it's always been at home before.  And have all restaurants conspired to drive us insane with the volume of the music in their establishments? Shouldn't the goal be to keep customers in the place as long as possible, spending money so your employees can keep their jobs? Why are you driving us out the door to find a place where......

What was I saying?