100th Blog Posting: A Time to Look Back and Ahead

It’s still hard to believe that I (a social media troglodyte) began writing a blog at the age of 95. I’m so grateful for the two people who made it come to life. The one who believed I had something to write about and the creative expert who generously and dependably takes care of the technical aspects each week.

I know it’s true, but it’s rather mind-boggling to realize that in the two years since that first posting (mid-August, 2017) I’m posting my 100^th blog post. And there are more in varying states in the queue.

What a journey it has been! Such unanticipated impacts on my life! Writing to you has sharpened my own “engaging” skills. It’s one thing to engage with aging casually, harder to do it purposefully, and even harder to put it into words that will make sense and be usable to others. Thinking about this blog has become a red thread in the tapestry of my life as I interweave my ARCed aging capacities with daily living demands and then write about it. I wake in the morning, ideas churning, eager to start the day. The activity has changed and continues to change me. Others have commented that I seem younger and more vibrant at 97 than I was at 95, and it rings true (even as I obviously age).

As I began thinking about writing a blog, I saw myself as a female ager writing from my encounters in engaging with aging as I gain insights. I am definitely not an expert on aging in general, just mine! I am limited in my vision by the reality that I am a remarkably healthy former RN/faculty member/writer and widowed nonagenarian, living alone in a home she owns, with two supportive sons, their wives and three granddaughters (all of whom live within a few miles). I realized that my blog would reflect my blind spots about aging in other circumstances. So there would be no “how to’s”, just vignettes of my own EWA encounters, reactions and insights. We all are being carried down the river of aging, but each of us has our own river to navigate and our own approaches.

With these caveats in mind I decided that I would:

• offer my experiences, insights and ideas as potential points of departure for the reader’s own unique situation and capacities.
• limit my focus to EWAing with normal age-related changes (ARCs) precisely because I didn’t have pathology and its treatment interwoven with my normal ARCs and daily living.   My thinking is that ARC-affected capacities are what any ager brings to living with an overlay of pathology and its management. (Care providers need to know about them too.)
• view the aging experience broadly while giving the health element its necessary place
• focus on the impact of ARCs on the details of everyday living. Again, because I was living with these nasty snags. (Besides outsiders to the world of the aged were researching and writing about ARCs, but it takes an insider to see their personal impact.)
• use a “light” approach in my writing style in line with my belief that data are neutral, including data on one’s emotional-laden responses to aging and its effects
• seek images to enhance the ideas to stretch the reader’s mind

Looking ahead, I foresee postings that reflect my accumulating, progressing ARCs, their effects that are creating increasingly difficult challenges and the constant, conscious adaptations that fill the minutes and hours of my day. I’ll continue to share what I can of my ongoing journey.

When I no longer can, let’s agree that, “To everything there is a season. . . .”

I am so grateful to those of you who join me on my blogging efforts by commenting or otherwise giving me feedback.   I feel like Longfellow’s archer who “ . . . shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where. . .”.   Your input lets me know where at least some of them land. Beyond that I value your reactions and learn from your comments. Let’s move on together.