Birthday thoughts

 

The annual birthday picture with Jordan
Lovely birthday dinner tonight--Christians good hamburgers,
Jordan's blue cheese salad, and brownies

Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about aging, long before my birthday, but today seems like an appropriate time to write about it. It’s no secret: today I turned eighty-four. I won’t say I never expected to live this long, because that would not be the truth. I will say that I am a bit surprised to be here, and no, I don’t feel my age.

When my mom was this age, she began a long, slow decline into dementia, painful for both of us. Maybe because the lovely, happy, laughing woman, always a prioer lady, was replaced by someone I barely knew, I began all those years ago to think about aging, and one very unscientific conclusion I arrived at is that some of us keep our physical health and lose our minds; others keep our minds but the physical body goes to pieces. Mom was generally in good health.

I on the other hand have 500 chronic physical problems—okay, that’s an exaggeration, but if you’d see the pills I take twice a day you might think it comes close to truth. And, as I said to Jordan the other day, it’s always something, often a little something, but an annoyance. The latest if that wearing sleeping shirts and sitting on the leather seats of my walker and desk chair, I took a layer of skin off the back of both thighs. Annoying and painful, plus needing a trip to the doctor, antibiotics, and messy wound dressing.

My mind, on the other hand, seems almost as sharp as ever (my kids might disagree). I’m still writing, still figuring out how to put concepts into words, and loving it. Sure I sometimes open a window on the computer and stare at it, puzzled about what I was going to do, and like all of us I sometimes wander into the kitchen and wonder why I’m there. And I forget names. Jean, who watched her husband disappear into the never-land of Alzheimer’s, tells me if you forget a name but get it back the next day and keep it, that’s okay. If you never get it back, that’s a problem. For some odd reason, the name I can never remember is a celebrity who has no direct effect on my life—historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. There! I did it! I called I up from memory.

I talked to my brother about this the other day. He’s ninety, with a lot of physical problems and not much stamina, but his mind is sharp. He agreed with my unscientific theory (not always the case), and I’m sure he too was thinking of Mom.

Pandemic did a number on me, and I have never gotten over quarantine. I am content in my cottage—going out is fun but a lot of trouble. And like my brother, I have no stamina. I couldn’t walk a city block if I had to. I’m a bit stunned to realize that I can’t do everything by myself and need someone to help me. Specifically, I can’t climb on a stool to get to high shelves nor bend down to the low (I’m afraid I’ll fall out of my walker). But when Jordan refers to herself as my caretaker, I wince a bit. Me? Needing a caretaker? I could survive on my own. I can certainly care for myself and feed myself, but there are many things I can’t do.

I’m the one who voluntarily gave up driving (long story, mostly involving the walker), but it’s sometimes a shock to realize I can’t jump in the car to run an errand but must ask someone to do that for me. And that’s a rub. My caretakers are busy, I am hesitant to ask for fear I’ll push them too far, but then I’m frustrated because the dog really n
eeds to go to the vet or I really need that package mailed. We have our moments of tension in this household, but then, who doesn’t. It’s a delicate balance. I have an occasional pity party—lonely, frustrated by anything from my work to isolation, discouraged—but then again, who doesn’t?

I’m fortunate in so many ways: I have a comfortable, manageable home in the cottage with my dog. I have work that gets me out of bed, albeit a little later all the time, I have friends who come to see me, and I have fun cooking some darn good meals. Eighty-four doesn’t feel bad at all, but then I realize I am so much luckier than many my age.

There’s a huge difference between aging and mortality, and the latter is a subject I’m not yet willing to tackle. Tune in next week—maybe. I will l say that it’s with curiosity as much as fear that I hear time’s winged chariot.

Happy Birthday from
Jordan and Sophie