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.

Returning to the Baby/Toddler Stage

What a pleasure it was to watch our boys gain their earliest capabilities. They were so pleased with themselves as they mastered each new facet of their young lives. And what a reverse experience it has been to find myself losing those same capabilities these days.

They were curious and happy as they discovered they could clumsily pick up a piece of cereal on their highchair tray.   Now here I am clumsily trying to pick up small objects. Curious and happy are not my reactions.   When they found that they could actually drop things because they wanted to, that was fun!   Now I drop things several times a day. Reaction? Dismay! Disgust! They didn’t mind at all that they were inept as they began to manipulate first a spoon, then a fork and much later, a table knife.   So far, I can manage spoons and even forks (though with increasing clumsiness). But using a table knife to cut food into bite size pieces is beyond me.   It’s all an exercise in humility.

The boys blithely teetered uncertainly on their feet until they became comfortably secure. Did teetering bother or deter them? Not a bit!   And we grownups cheered them on.   At 97, just standing in place is anything but secure and blithe is not the word I would use to describe how teetering makes me feel. Nor are bystanders cheering.   The floor was a great new world that was open to exploration for them whether they were crawling or toddling.   Now I’ve no wish to explore floors except to look for uneven surfaces.

It has been a bit disconcerting to stand back this way and look at both sides of the same coin. They responded normally and naturally with pleasure most of the time as they grew into their bodies (though sometimes with impatience when their minds and desires for an activity exceeded their capacities). I’m grateful to be able to hold on to what I can and use my waning capacities to fulfill my desires as best I can. My frustrations arise most often when the normal losses I’m experiencing interfere with what has been mindless routine.

As I thought and wrote this piece about looking at my aging from this perspective, I began to wonder if it was possible to take a page from the boys’ obvious joy with their changes. It would be silly, if not outrageous to think I might behave with delight when aging makes so many little things go awry. But it certainly wouldn’t be amiss if I quit getting my knickers in a knot over a little ineptitude or even repeated ineptitudes would it?

It didn’t take long for an ineptitude opportunity to present itself. A bottle cap dropped to the floor. My reflex hissy fit flared, but I stopped it midpoint as I bent over, became neutral and picked it up . . . a bit bemused at the reversal I’d achieved.   In the days that have followed my ongoing mishaps keep offering fresh opportunities for me to practice more toddler–like responses. I think you’ll be relieved to learn that I haven’t emulated their obvious joy. What I have found possible is a flashing remembrance of their joys as I bend over and pick up what I’ve dropped, or watch my clumsy hands make a mess of some tasks.   In the end it’s become a kind of wry humor that feels better than impatience and anger.

Aging and Its Age-Related Changes – They’re Normal!

Sometimes I find comfort in thinking that I’m not alone in this aging experience.   I have the company of billions of other fellow-agers. It doesn’t change my aging—that is what it is. Sometimes it’s messy and uncomfortable. It feels abnormal from my former state. But thinking about the reality that it actually is normal, does have a positive effect on my attitude and that’s a plus.   Normal doesn’t have to be perfect.

I think back to the early years of my marriage when the son of Italian immigrant parents and the daughter of Swedish immigrant parents tried to integrate the cultures of their childhoods that now were affecting expectations, behaviors and attitudes. Nordic and Mediterranean were indeed different. I would get upset and frustrated (as did he). But then the thought would come to me, “What if he was perfect?”

My private image of either an imperfect me having to live with a perfect husband (or the reverse), was so much worse than what we had that somehow I was content to muddle along with our differences as we learned to live together and blend them. We were just being normal.

Another vision of perfection occurred to me as I thought about aging. What if I had aged without any of the normal age related changes? What if the image that looked out at me as I comb my hair in the morning was without wrinkles and gravitational sags, but had the bloom of youth? My hair was still full and blond instead of thinning and shades of gray? What if I moved about with youthful grace and speed? Could move about freely without having to touch or hold on to something solid?   If I remembered things automatically? Could hear without straining? Could pick up and manipulate objects without having to consider their weight and shape? What if, before sitting down, I didn’t have to think about the height of a chair or surface and whether there were supporting arms so I could get up? What if I could maneuver inclines and stairs or objects of any height without calculation? What if. . . . .?

Seems to me such a non-aging , old individual would be a freak of nature, an outlier among fellow-agers.

And, how would younger generations respond? Certainly the scientists of every stripe would have a picnic scrutinizing and testing such an alien phenomenon.

So, once again, I come back to my reality. I’m normal. My normalcy is a constantly shifting state. And it is as it should be. I and my fellow-agers will each age at our own pace and in our own ways.   Our rivers of aging may be shorter or longer.   But the rivers of aging we are navigating have commonalities and this knowledge offers a bond that can be comforting.