Had a hard time falling asleep last night so I got up and read to stop my brain from going down useless paths. I'm 71 and my thoughts are turning more often to how much time I don't have and the inevitable end of us all, which of us will go first and if it's him will I be able to make sense of the bills and finances or know how to run the kiln (as if that will even be happening by then), will I still be able to wipe my own ass or be wearing diapers unable to get out of bed, will my ingrown toenail have made a complete circle and cause constant pain. Like I said, useless paths.
I think about my friend Kathy who is younger than me and whose husband is in his 80's and whose health has taken a serious nosedive this past year. I think about my friend Gene a year or so older than me who has several stents and whose longest friend died in his arms last year. I think about the trip my grandgirl Autumn wants me to make with her and Jade and it fills me with anxiety, the traveling, the being gone even though I would like to see other parts of the world. I think about the old man who walks his old dog down my street whom I haven't seen in a while, but there he is this morning so I'm relieved to see him, a man I don't even know.
It's silly, I know. I'm in relatively good health, I'm active, I'm interested in life, I still create, I could possibly live another 20 years. Twenty years sounded so long when I was in my 30s and 40s but now, it's just a blink of the eyes, and the body is irrevocably breaking down. My skin is thin and so crepey any flexing at all produces a sandstone canyon of wrinkles and ridges easily pulled away from the body, not to mention the general wear and tear of old scars and age spots and scaly patches. White hairs keep sprouting from my chin, upper lip, eyebrows, and even in my nose which I repeatedly yank though the hair on my head is still holding on to its color. I no longer grow hair in my armpits. My eyes are developing cataracts (fixable) and macular degeneration (not fixable). Not a pretty picture.
Well, today I'm alive and I have pansies to get and plant, an azalea to get in the ground, a drawing to finish, wax forms to make, yoga to do, birds to listen to and flowers to admire, a shower curtain rod to install, a dinner to fix, a dog to walk, a garage to organize for wintering over tender plants. Life. I'm not frail, not yet.
Time to get on with it.
Echos of the thoughts roiling through my mind as well...
ReplyDeleteI admire your stamina and hard work on all your projects. I'm going to be 70 on my next birthday and my husband is going to be 80. I see us slowing down and know the direction we're headed. I've even begun wondering if we should downsize from our house to something much smaller and start to get rid of our years and years of accumulated stuff. It's interesting getting old. It's a fun challenge to try and do it with as much of our minds and bodies intact. I'm already losing my memory and that truly blows my declining mind.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that too. I'll be writing or talking and can't think of the word I want, or I have it in my head and five minutes later I can't remember it. It took me two days to remember the name of a woman I know. I could tell you all about her, but couldn't call up her name.
DeleteI could have written this and Andrea's comment too. And frankly, I've not even felt as good as "usual" since I got my booster. I'm just tired. So, so tired. The hairs, the skin, the anxiety at the thought of travel- it's all so real. And the worries about not being able to take care of myself. And I can't even bring myself to think about what would happen if something happened to...him.
ReplyDeleteIt's all just too fucking real, isn't it?
Yup, that all sounds very familiar.
ReplyDeleteYou and I are going down the same paths! Only, I'm a bit ahead of you in this ??race !!! I'm 78, and my husband is 88. He has declined tremendously this last year or so. He is like a toddler who has to be constantly minded.
ReplyDeleteWho knew, when we were younger, that when we got older, the future would look so scary? I remember years ago when I first discovered the saggy, wrinkly skin on my arms. I asked my doctor,"what's that?". He answered, "gravity,
my dear!".
Getting old reminds me of those Star Trek episodes where they went to different planets and discovered different worlds, I, for one, did not see the changes coming. We "elderly" people now have been hit with a double whammy. Our personal changes that you so perfectly describe, and, the society that we thought we knew, has turned topsy turvy at the same time.
Such familiar thoughts. Except that when handsome partner was living I hoped to be the survivor because I knew he could never cope alone. I did survive him. And here I am, ten years later, looking at another birthday, still very well and active, but I don't know that old party in the mirror.
ReplyDeleteI've had thoughts like that too - about how Mike's dad will outlive us all & will I have to be the one to take care of him when Mike dies (statistically more likely that he'll go first). The answer is yes, I probably will. I really suck at caregiving - and what if Mike doesn't die, but has some sort of slow deterioration that requires that I be that caregiver? As you can see, my thoughts are all about ME and what I might have to do.
ReplyDeleteI identify with so much of what you have written here! I am also 71 and I am also named Ellen and I also worry about what the future will bring for me. I have always been a worrier but I know that worrying only tires me out and won't help, will it? If only I knew the future...
ReplyDeleteYour body sounds like mine. I can't worry about the future. The fear takes over if I do. I do worry about my many years of journals and all the art work.
ReplyDeleteI've been there and downsized quite a bit, but still have a lot of things that I'm not ready to part with.
DeleteI imagine it's natural to think about such things. I think about them too, sometimes. Time is passing for all of us, but I just try to focus on the now and all the things I still have to enjoy. It's all we can do, really!
ReplyDeleteYes, yes and yes. I am the same. Hubby is waning and I know I cannot manage this acreage and large house if he leaves. I try to think positively about these things.
ReplyDeleteDitto -- that's why we're moving -- Robert has Alzheimer's and it's progressing, and as for myself, it's COPD and congestive heart failure with a dose of Afib thrown in! I have a good portion of the house packed and ready to move, but we're still waiting for the right mobile home to come on the market. Keeping fingers and toes crossed! Same to you!!
DeleteI recently celebrated my 75th birthday, and thought to myself, "Well, I probably have twenty years left at the outside." Then I thought, "I guess I'd better make today count." Balzaz had a word for us: “Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.”
ReplyDeleteOh, I say! Hear, hear!! I'm 77 so I have you by a few years. The things they don't tell you about growing old!! My arm pits are also like a newborn's butt! LOL Never knew that would happen--and my eyebrows are almost gone. :/ I won't even begin talking about wrinkles! LOL You're in good company! My primary dr. asked me about my heart today--asked if I'd got the defibrillator installed. Uh... no. LOL So I sat for yet another pep talk about how at risk I was. Ah me... Just keep on keeping on!!! You have it all under control!
ReplyDeleteReading all of the other comments on this post has me nodding my head and silently agreeing with everyone's viewpoint. My mantra anymore is "One day at a time, one day at a time."
ReplyDeleteWe've interacted physically for not even an hour, otherwise reading and correspondence. And yet you live in my brain just as a piece of me lives in yours. And when you are gone, the stories and impressions of you remain inside me. And when I'm gone, the stories or impressions I've told about you reside in the brains of people I've talked to about you, shown your work, and seen your photographs. And we finally echo on as perhaps just archetypes, familiar characters in the human drama. I'm not concerned that some day I will not exist, just as I am not concerned that all memories of me will fade into the void. Kurt Vonnegut was right. We start in the ultraviolet and decay into the infrared, but there's lots of spectrum way, way below that.
ReplyDeleteI love this and yes I agree. I'm not concerned with not existing. Everything is temporary. That's not where these 'useless paths' stem from, it's how the end manifests itself. And to that I am proactive in the way I live my life so as to have the best possible outcome. I'm not worried about fading out of memory, most of us do eventually. It's one of the reasons I never signed 40 years of etched and carved glass that's out there. Ironically, it is why I started my blog, so that any future generations that stem from me will know something about what my life was like. My sister does genealogy and we know name going back centuries but really nothing about the people themselves beyond basic facts...birth, death, marriage, children, sometimes occupation. But of course even this blog will eventually get lost.
DeleteMethinks we are in this together. I go down these paths too in the wee hours before daybreak. But your last paragraph is everything. Thank you for it.
ReplyDeleteIt's your last to-do list that makes the days worth getting out of bed. I hadn't planned to stop teaching but the pandemic took care of that. Now here I am at home with a retired husband who is very happy to be home and doing/not doing the same things day after day. I don't know what comes next but I know this isn't all there is.
ReplyDelete