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

 

 

 

 

Tick, tock.....

"Only 53 more days!"

"It's Wednesday! Only two more days until the weekend."

"Six months until my vacation!"

"10 minutes until quitting time...."


What about this minute, this hour, this day? While we're counting down the days--sometimes even the seconds--today is slipping away, unattended and unappreciated. And sadly, it can never be replaced.....ever. Trite, obvious, but seemingly an ignored concept by so many people. Maybe until we gain some years and realize what we're losing.

I used to be one of them. In one of my professional roles over the years, I taught middle school social studies. To say the kids were uninterested would be a gross understatement, but that fact wasn't unique to my class. Students today, especially if they are 13, have more pressing matters to concern themselves with, like hormonal surges that make them literally crazy for a few years. Or parental pressure to WIN at all costs, at everything they attempt, leaving no room for failure while learning something new. These children begin to see learning as dangerous to their well-being at home and to be avoided at all costs. Or on the flip side, they have parents who are MIA, either in body or spirit or both.

"Why don't I have my homework? Well, my mom picked me up for the weekend, then on Sunday night got into a fist fight with my dad when he came late to get me. My homework is still at her house, left behind when I had to sneak out the window in a hurry to get away. My clothes for PE are still there in her washing machine, too."  Paul Revere and his midnight ride aren't of much interest to this child stuck in the middle of his parents' war.

I enjoyed teaching in spite of all this for about 11 years. Then the pressures began to wear me down, day by day, hour by hour, minute by crawling minute. As I rounded the curved driveway leading to the school every morning, the pressure turned to dread and then to near panic, a fist curled in my stomach just waiting to punch its way out. I figured out how many years I would have to endure before I could retire with whatever benefits would be left by that time. My stomach roiled. My heart pounded as I unlocked my classroom door each morning.

I watched other people around me--not all, but many--look at their watches dozens of times each day, like they had it all calculated until they could pack it in and leave for the last time. I commiserated with them in the faculty lounge: Only 10 days until spring break. Only 3 months until summer. Only 2 days until Friday. 3 hours until I can go home. There were others who made it to 3 weeks until full retirement and then dropped dead, the "prize" there in sight. Others finally got to pack up the new RV and begin all the traveling they had worked 30 years for but were stilled by a stroke on the way down the driveway. All those years of counting the hours and it was all for nothing anyway.

One day I had to face myself in the mirror and admit what I was doing to my life: I was wishing it away. Literally. I was missing my own life while I was merely enduring a job I no longer wanted. For what? A paycheck? Benefits? Couldn't I get those somewhere else, somewhere I enjoyed going every day, or at least had a sense of peace about? How much is a life worth, anyway? Just ask the ones cut down after mucking through all those wasted years.

Today I am a self-employed educator who got up and watched the fog slip across my garden in the morning stillness. I still teach and I write, thus fulfilling a life-long passion to express myself. I experience every moment as it arrives, and I watch it go on its unique way, never to be experienced again. I don't wrestle with my moments, one by one, until I can get somewhere else. Yes, my life has uncertainty. But it's of my making and within my control.

Teaching is no different than working in a factory or selling shoes. When you start marking time to get away from it, you need to do just that. And you don't have to wait until you're 50 or 60, like I did.

The clock is marking every precious second of your life.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Slumdog seniors....

I went to a birthday party the other night. Actually, it was three birthday celebrations rolled into one. As we age, we have to multi-task more, not less, as you younger folks might think. The theory is, I guess, that there is less time left to us so we'd better make the most of it. Or something like that.

The party was for three men who are all within 5 or 6 years of each other, hovering in their low to mid-60s. We gathered at someone's home, BYOB in hand, and enough cash to contribute to a couple of pizzas. We also don't like to cook or do dishes once our kids are grown. Let them sweat in kitchens for their families. We're done. It explains the predominance of grey hair in restaurants between 4 and 6 PM. Also, Wheel of Fortune comes on at 7.

Naturally, the conversation  meandered around the topic of age for a while. The usual jokes about increased forgetfulness (how many times can I lose my keys in a 24 hour span, anyway?) and stereotypical topics for "seniors," meaning us instead of high schoolers. I have found, by the way, that men are no less coy about their age than are women, just louder and more obscure in their smokescreens of deflection. Add up the years for men and then start subtracting levels of testosterone, I guess. The next step is to pull out all the little blue pill jokes, the ones that all OTHER guys have to use, never the teller of the joke. And WHY do the advertisements show a couple sitting in two different bathtubs, holding hands across the divide? No wonder they're having trouble connecting. Get in the same tub, folks, that might help! Sheesh.....

A woman will at least tell you flat out she isn't going to reveal her age, if it's important to her. In my case, I made the decision at age 61 that my hands were going to give me away anyway, so I might as well put it out there. I think I'm young in other ways, and I want women to see and hear what to expect as we head into our personal sunsets. Not that it's the same for everyone, but that's the point: Younger women need honesty from those of us who are a bit ahead of them on this path. We need to give each other as much information as possible, instead of ducking the digits on our personal calendars.

Oh, yes, how the rest of the conversation went at the birthday party the other night (see, I forgot what we were talking about). As we sat around the party pool watching the plastic shark with sunglasses ride the current, the topic quckly turned to filing for social security. Should you file as soon as you can or wait? If you wait, will it still be there at all? Will you? What to do, what to do.

Retire? Stop working? Do we even have such a choice any more? Medical care. The VA-style of care vs. private pay?  This hospital or that one?

Somehow outhouses came up. Don't ask me how that happened. I truly don't know.  Most people reading this right now have never seen an outhouse, much less used one. Portapotties are the closest thing matching an outhouse today, but they are CHOICES in most cases. Not so with the outhouses OUR grandparents used, and maybe a few of us depending on how far we grew up from an interstate highway. It was the outhouse or.....well, we don't want to take that thought any farther.

There was continued discussion about one hole houses or two (WHY would anyone want a two seater outhouse??), how often they were moved, the types of "toilet paper" that was used, and practical jokes with these quaint facilities, of course. (And, yes, Slumdog Millionaire did come up.)  How does one "lock" an outhouse door? Did you have to paint the thing?

There were one or two others topics dicsussed that I won't even mention here. I wish they hadn't been mentioned then, either. Let's just say that we did not discuss the state of the nation or its budget, Japan and nuclear power plants, green cars, or anything else remotely topical, not even "paper or plastic." I'm amazed to recall that the weather never even came up, usually the number one thing on seniors' lists of critical information. I'd have even settled for that instead of the outhouses. As a result, I drank one too many beers to deaden the pain and then couldn't sleep later.

We did play a simple dice game, using quarters as booty, and I won both games. Couple that with this column, I don't think I'll have to worry about being invited back. Darn.....

Jiggles and wobbles....

I exercise. A lot. This isn't something new to me, either. I think I started when I was in my 20s and lived in Denver, at least that's my recollection. (I do remember living in Denver...I'm not THAT far gone yet.) I do think that's when I started going to a gym nearly every day, though.

They had a jacuzzi and a steam room, which are wonderful things to have access to when you live in a really cold climate, I can tell you that. So much so that I eventually bought my own hot tub, which now sits on my screened-in porch. My favorite time to get in that bubbly, steaming water is when it's as cold as it's going to get here in Florida, a throwback to my days in the Rockies. In any case, it's a great treat after a work out.

But to get back to the exercise thing. Someone gives me a workout routine and I go through the paces about 4 times a week amidst other really sweaty people, all trying not to get caught watching one another. I have attacked and mastered that torture machine that makes you climb steps until you know you MUST have reached heaven by the time it stops. I have worked up to over 150 sit-ups in various contortions, can lift more weight than any 62-year old woman has a right to lift, and my arms are toned and buff to prove it (even though the chicken skin thing spoils the buffness a bit). The whole thing has become an addiction for me, not that I'm complaining. There are far worse things I could be addicted to by this time. Believe me.

So, could someone please tell me why my thighs still jiggle and ripple with....well, whatever makes them jiggle and ripple?  I don't overeat, either, so don't even go there. (I changed doctors once over a remark about "pushing back from the table" without even asking about my diet. He just assumed I must be eating too much, the idiot with one less patient now.)

Ask anyone who knows me. I don't eat a lot! And I follow the program of a leading weight management company, one that helped me lose 30 pounds two years ago....and 4 years ago...and 6 years ago. That peskly 30 pounds that started tracking me down shortly after I turned 40 and is determined to hang out on my hips and thighs.

It's gone now, though, and I continue to work out. So, what it is about aging that insists on defying the torture we put our bodies through? Here I am with great arms, shoulders, and back...ripped, even....with this jello on my belly and thighs. Am I doomed to wobble on the bottom?

Well, I'll go to the gym and think about it as I climb those stairs....forever.

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.


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