Ageing Update

This I know: Nobody else really cares about my ageing. This I also know: anyone who reads this blog is in the same process as I. So here are a few of my personal reflections and I really would be pleased to hear how you are doing.

First the good news: My body is okay. As long as I do my exercises and drink my two glasses of red wine a day things go pretty well. I have not been able to get my Dr. to actually officially prescribe those two glasses of red wine a day so Medicare does not reimburse me for my now 3-Buck Chuck. My golf drives get shorter and shorter. The other day I had to use a 5 iron to reach a green only 130 yards away and I can’t blame age for my lousy putting. Fortunately there are some things that my brain still handles okay. I recently was able to give a brief 3-point speech without having to consult my manuscript.

With age my concepts of God and my vision of reality keep getting expanded more and more.

Yet ageing is obvious, especially when I sit down at this darn computer. I screw up all the time, get frustrated every time I try to use this machine which I cannot get along without and which drives me to distraction when I use it and it doesn’t stop me from writing run-on sentences.

I keep forgetting numbers. Can’t even remember a house number that I had memorized when I had left my home. I left behind (so far not retrieved) my annual calendar which had not only my appointments but also my phone contacts, prescriptions,and computer passwords!

My lack of alertness bothers me especially after someone honks at me when I made a right turn on red in front of him or her. (I KNOW THIS COULD GET SERIOUS!)

I notice now that occasionally people show deference to me because to them I obviously appear as “ an old man”. I also notice that others now seek my opinion or consultation much less frequently and when I give my suggestions they seem to be ignored more often.

So I wake up each morning especially grateful that my wife Jane is patient with me, that she is the one who insisted that we move to this retirement community, that we can still afford the monthly payments (even after working for the church virtually my whole life), that I have a family which supports me even though we just cancelled the planned visit of all six of my sisters, two sisters-in-law and one brother because within 48 hours one had unexpected cancer surgery and another had to accompany a spouse to the hospital for urgent blood vessel work.

So that’s the word for today. I will put it in my calendar that next November I will again give an update provided I remember and/or don’t lose my calendar…and am still among the living.