Tag: old age

Locking My Bedroom Window

In life we ultimately discover that problems require solutions. However, the solution to all problems are many times perplexing and difficult to uncover.

There are times when I feel like Sherlock Holmes attempting to solve a case. One such mystery has me quite stumped and in the tradition of Dr. Watson I will name this case…The Night Prowler and Mystery Biter.

I assure you my situation is not unique. I have spoken to countless friends and acquaintances that find themselves faced with a similar conundrum and no solution in sight.

After studying many of these puzzling acts, I find myself close to a solution.

It all began when I turned sixty-five. Sure, Social Security was now on the horizon, but I couldn’t seem to find any correlation between my case and the monthly stipend from the government. So no conspiracy theory here.

I continued my investigation.

At first it was intermittent.

A bite here, a pain there. I took little notice thinking it was something that had happened during daylight hours.

Yet after a time I realized the events were occurring closer together and far more often.

I would awaken with a large red itchy mass on my cheek. Or a sharp pain in my rib or even an inability to actually move my arm.

I became more mystified as time went on.

More frequently the first words out of my mouth in the morning were OUCH! What the hell?

Not wanting to overreact to these nighttime attacks on my body, I attempted a reasonable explanation for these occurrences.

Aliens? Not so much. I had heard they probed earthlings through the belly button and nope, no evidence of that anywhere.

Having the hassle of working sans Dr. Watson my theories often came up short.

But I persevered. My determination was inspiring. Not quite certain to whom, but I digress.

First things first. How were these interlopers entering a locked residence in the middle of the night.

Possessing a secure entrance where I must buzz someone inside, it seems rather impossible. But, of course we know that if one is determined nothing is impossible.

The bedroom window I thought. They must be climbing up and sneaking in to beat me. Yet, I     thought I might hear noises if that was the case.

I examined the possibility someone was driving a car through the window at such rapid speed it was like a flash going by in a dream. Too quickly for my eyes to even perceive.

Maybe that dream about participating in the Formula 500 wasn’t a dream after all?

No matter how I tried to imagine a plausible scenario, I couldn’t seem to come up with a viable reason why I awakened in the morning bruised, battered and full of ouchies.

I definitely wasn’t imaging these mystery bruises.

They weren’t there at night, but in the morning, I couldn’t turn my neck. Or my foot hurt, or a big red itchy bump was on my shoulder.

Was I running in my sleep? Who and what was sneaking in at night to beat the hell out of me?

What the heck, was my mattress made of, steel?

It’s not as if old age doesn’t afford you enough aches and pains, at night ghosts, goblins or ghouls are partying on my bed and kicking the hell out of me.

OUCH!

I once hopped out of bed in the morning. Eager to begin a new day. Filled with energy and ambition and tanked up with enough coffee to run a fifty-mile marathon. Okay, maybe not fifty miles.

Now if I simply turn my head to look at the clock it takes five minutes to stop the pain and another ten to turn my head back.

I’m beginning to think it’s not aliens at all. Or teenagers doing wheelies over my entire body with a GTO. I’m beginning to suspect it’s my body punishing me for not working out in college, or after. My body sees young girls with spandex on walking to the gym thinking, serves you right to suffer aches and pains after the way you neglected me.

But who knew?

To us exercise was walking back and forth to school four times a day. Riding our bikes to the drug store or playing dodge ball in a neighbor’s back yard.

It was walking to a friend’s home six blocks away and returning home before the street lights came on.

Running home from school when you got all ‘A’s on your report card.

Walking to the store for a quarter’s worth of penny candy and wax teeth.

Or chasing the Good Humor man down the street. “STOP! I need a Strawberry Shortcake Bar.”

It was going on the bus with a friend to that new giant mall and walking around there all day.

Or swimming in the summer because there was no air conditioning.

I believe that would qualify as exercise.

So why do I feel like I’m in horrible shape?

Why is my body so angry that it wakes up each morning with a chip on its shoulder, a bite or a big huge OUCH!?

We ate healthy, played healthy and there were no video games to keep us glued to a screen. Our feet were our mode of transportation and they worked great. Now it takes me ten visits to the shoe store to find a pair that doesn’t kill my feet.

Ageing is difficult enough when you can actually see the ravages of time. But the ones that are stealth, well that’s totally over the top.

I have to go now so have a great day. I’m setting up a teddy bear nanny cam in my bedroom. I’ll catch those suckers now!

At My Age Words Are Scary

Sometimes we forget how scary words can be. We should have learned at a young age that words have great meaning but sometimes we forget.

Like when Little Red Riding Hood had her conversation with the big bad wolf who threatened to eat her up! Yeah, that should have been a hint he wasn’t there to play Candyland.

But I for one have too many times been guilty of dismissing the enormous power of language over our lives. Despite the little engine that could, I have too frequently told myself I can’t.

We are wired to absorb words into our brain, then they settle somewhere in our word vault where they sit, either doing good or bad as we plow through life.

Yes, I used plow because sometimes life can be as hard as digging up dirt in a rocky field.

Yet although we are aware that words can be damaging, abusive and harmful, we are often the ones who foist the harshest of the vocabulary upon ourselves.

Our subconscious, which is not always a friend by the way, can put the kibosh on our good times. Sort of the way a metabolism that sees carbs and ignores their existence instead of breaking them down, can create more fat cells.

Even if we change our rhetoric and tell ourselves we can instead of we can’t, our subconscious refuses to accept the latest version of our confidence level.

The negativity we have pushed forward stays and overpowers any new positive thoughts.

And yes, although we are saying nice things about ourselves, our subconscious, who let’s face it runs the show, isn’t buying it. So we’re locked into old ways of thinking, when we may have not been too happy with us and inserted some pretty rough stuff into the old confidence mechanism.

Our subconscious is like a movie critic that only likes black and white pictures and dismisses any benefits of color.

So how can we change our attitudes and fight this monster we may have created?

By the way, not everyone has filled the subconscious train with negative cargo and been unkind to their psyche, but many have. As one who stowed away plenty of harmful baggage, I’m here to say, that train is tough to get up a hill.

We all have a way to sabotage ourselves even if we don’t choose to do so. Our subconscious will find a way to keep you from doing the things you really want to experience, because it’s very tone deaf.

Yet, I still believe knowledge is power and so I’ve adopted a new attitude ala Patti Labelle. A new battle attack against a subconscious that has run the show for years. That was wired in our childhood. I now choose to be the new General George Patton, a real son of a bitch. I am taking back the reins of this old work horse and jumping over those hurdles.

How am I achieving this great feat you ask? I assume you would want to know because you’re still reading, so here goes:

I have eliminated the words “At my age” from my vocabulary. Or sure they can be used with other words, but no longer together. I seriously could not believe how many times a day I said these three self-sabotaging words. Is the phrase just another aspect of aging? Who knows, but it’s not good.

Do you want to travel to…? At my age I can’t rush around so much.

Should I buy a new couch? At my age why spend the money?

At my age I’m slowing down.

Do I need a new car? At my age…at my age… What the hell? Who am I methuselah?

So recently I head a story from a friend about an incredibly successful and influential man in his nineties remarrying for the fourth time.

“Wow, quite an optimist,” I said.

“No, you don’t understand,” my friend said. “That’s not how he thinks. He lives like he’s in his forties and has his whole life ahead of him. I think he believes he’ll live forever.”

I was dumbfounded. “Yes, but we don’t,” I said. Well I really didn’t say that, it was my subconscious adding its two cents.

“That doesn’t matter to him, he acts as though he’ll live forever and therefore he believes he has all the time in the world.”

Point taken, at least on a conscious level.

I decided I would embrace this new way of thinking. I would do the things I had told myself I was too old to do, feel, think and achieve.

After all I had my whole life ahead, right? No one actually knows how long that is, so why not believe it’s going to be super long?

Of course, my subconscious mind scoffed, fought for power and tried to override this whole new me, but I prevailed.

I have totally rearranged my thought process from, should I? to, why shouldn’t I?

We all should and age shouldn’t determine any decision that would bring happiness or more satisfaction in our lives.

Perhaps the key to staying young is simply not accepting that you aren’t. I know words have power and I am using all of mine to become that little engine that could. I think I can I think I can, No, I know I can. At my age at least I’ve learned that.

Oops, okay that was the last time I say them together, but it just seemed to fit in this instance.

Someone once said, “Words mirror how one feels and thinks. The moment people say something, they are already inevitably shaping the world.”

It’s your world, so take control and shape and shift it as you will. For as long as you will.

Growing Old in Captivity

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Being old in captivity brings a whole new set of problems. Each age group has faced unique challenges in the face of this horrific world attack by an evil virus and the world has now seen the ravages of biological warfare on a global scale.

Much has been learned or one can hope, but each age group has had to face different and scary trials.

I have witnessed the tests younger people including my own children and grandchildren have faced.

It is however my own that I can speak to most clearly.

Did I fully appreciate Amazon before, probably not? Do I now? Have I completely embraced the whole let my fingers do the walking routine online? You bet. Will I be excited to run through a mall again and feel and touch the merchandise? You bet I will! Is chocolate still a panacea, it is indeed.

Busy brings distraction. Growing old is difficult and most of my generation have learned to use denial and distraction as the prevalent tools in their arsenal to battle back against the reality of old age.

Time doesn’t creep it pounces.

We look in the mirror and our close-up vision is compromised by time.

We compensate by using magnified mirrors that are probably the work of the devil, but we insist on a true glimpse into the ravages of time.

We battle back with plastic surgery, Botox, creams, treatments whatever we can unearth to slow the process.

Yet what I have discovered in the last few months is that the greatest tool in our arsenal is indeed distraction and without that we must come face to face with our own mortality.

And it isn’t pretty.

In the pre-covid 19 days I would see a new wrinkle and meet a friend for lunch, do some shopping, play Maj Jong, visit my grandsons, or any one of a million other activities, including work related to distract from the truth that stared me in the face, I am growing old. I am now the oldest generation, and time is winning.

The last few months have brought many deaths, some from covid, some from natural causes, but many I grew up with and around are suddenly gone.

Once I would hear about a death of an old friend and busy myself with trivial activities to ignore the fact that time was racing past. Distraction was king, and I say long live the king!

Now I have no such luxury. Binge watching Shitt’s Creek is not the same as being with family or friends. It isn’t working. It may provide a moment’s distraction, but our lifestyle is the ultimate defense against reality. Celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, important life events and holidays with family and friends cannot be discounted.

We hear bad news, we move, we see a gray hair we move, we feel the ravages of time on our bodies, we move.

Without movement, we have little defense.

We need as Streisand said, “People”. We need interaction, even those among us who once considered ourselves a bit of an introvert. We’ve all realized we are part of the world and we use this world to our advantage to deal with the fears and issues we face each day.

Without interaction we are forced to see life for what is it is and that can be very painful for one who is moving into old age. It even sounds sad, but once I wouldn’t have cared. I could laugh with friends, celebrate life and keep going.

Stopping is not an option. The challenge has been to keep busy and relevant now that the world has closed up shop.

Soon we will all enter a new world, a new normal; we can’t yet predict or foresee and we will have to move even further away from the world we once knew.

This is a painful exercise even in the best of times so how we will approach these good byes now.

Part of growing older are the memories we embrace, our childhoods, our parenting years and remembering those who are now gone.

I know my generation is up to this as we have overcome before, we will again. I am forcibly optimistic and choose to be.

So to all my friends I can only say what I have been saying to myself,

More than ever it is imperative we make the most of every moment. Live fully and excitedly each day and dwell only in the present. Had we ever forgotten those rules and I have many times, we cannot again.

Happy new world coming and may it be the best years of your lives.