Thoughts On Aging
February 23, 2010
One would think that after almost two months into a new year that one would have mastered writing said year correctly. Alas, not moi as I still find myself writing 200 and then having to go back and put a 1 in front of a zero. However, I do know that I am not alone in this as Jill who cuts my hair every six weeks told me that she still did the same thing. This was after she heard me muttering about my failure to write the year correctly on my check. I was somewhat consoled by her comment as it meant I was not alone in this particular failure of my memory, which as one ages, begins to be worrisome as the dreaded Alzheimer’s becomes more of a possibility as each day passes. It’s silly I know, but I find myself counting the number of times I have a ’senior’ moment which, for you who have never experienced this phenomenon it is the inability to recall a word when having a conversation which can be very discombobulating. Or having a thought escape just as one opens one’s mouth to express it leaving one with a silly look just as everyone’s attention has turned to one. But, in that regard, I find myself being comforted by the thought, “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof”. This does, however, leave me with an interesting thought and that is just how many senior moments can one have before one has to many which is somewhat on the order of how much wood can a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood or if that doesn’t quite cut it there is always how many angels can dance on the end of a pin and since there is no answer to those two questions I must content myself with simply saying, “I don”t know”.
Speaking of the dread word ‘aging’, I find myself now in the sad position of watching as MGH of 48 years sits patiently hour after hour in his chair, his spirit trapped in a body that is failing him, watching endless westerns from forty years ago. I asked him how he can stand it and his reply was “with great difficulty”. When I whine at him about the state of the world, as I often do, always ending my rants with the question “just what is he going to do about it?” He calmly replies that he doesn’t think it will be his problem. Which is rather snarky of him IMO although just yesterday he surprised me by admitting that every morning he is surprised when he wakes up and finds out he is still alive.
I found this the other day and while I had read it before it has taken on new meaning as I have aged myself and acquired a slightly different perspective than I had when I was younger.
Thoughts on Aging
Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids?
If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.
“How old are you?” “I’m four and a half!”
You’re never thirty-six and a half.
You’re four and a half, going on five! That’s the key.
You get into your teens, now they can’t hold you back.
You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. “How old are you?” “I’m gonna be 16!” You could be 13, but hey, you’re ‘gonna’ be 16!
And then the greatest day of your life … you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony … YOU BECOME 21 …YESSSS!!!
But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk. He TURNED, like we had to throw him out. There’s no fun now, you’re just a sour-dumpling.
What’s wrong? What’s changed? You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you’re PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes!, it’s all slipping away.
Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.
But wait, you MAKE it to 60. You didn’t think you would!
So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.
You’ve built up so much speed that you HIT 70!
After that it’s a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!
You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime.
My grandmother won’t even buy green bananas! It’s an investment, you know, and maybe a bad one!
And it doesn’t end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; “I was JUST 92.” Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. “I’m 100 and a half!”
May you all make it (healthily) to 100 and a half
author unknown although George Carlin usually gets credit
With that I shall leave you for this time although I totally agree with the not buying green bananas. But then the fact that I don’t like bananas all that much probably has more to do with it than the thought that I might not be around to eat them in a couple of days does. Rather it’s because I am realizing more every day that I am rapidly approaching the end of the conveyer belt. You know the place where when you reach it you drop off and that’s it for this life which is something I never expected as I thought that the millennium would come when I turned sixty. Well it hasn’t and here we are now ten years into the new century which leads me to believe that my expectation was incorrect and perhaps it will be Plan B that takes effect. And yes, I know that no one knows the hour except God Himself but I had it on good authority from a religion teacher at BYU that we could reasonably expect the end around the turn of the century. Hmmm, I wonder if he is still alive and would like to rethink this, you know, kind’ve smooth it up around the edges a little.
Lot’s of snow for southern Utah this Winter, which is good for the snow pack that sends water to fill the aquifers which allows us to live in a desert. So in the words of MGH’s dad, the two things in this life one never should turn down is a rain storm and a heifer calf even though slipperiness is the bane of the elderly—but that’s life isn’t it. . . .