by Bonnie McCune
Never before have I worried about rolling out of my bed or a chair and falling down, kerplunk! For no reason. Now I have to. I feel like a spacer on the first outer space mission, alert with every breath, having always to think about where to place each foot. constantly aware. As I walk, my legs sometimes shake. Sharp pangs wander erratically across my legs, occasionally intersecting with a joint, others centered around a muscle.
I certainly empathize with people struggling with palsy or Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis, or even just a major hangover. This physical response seems to occur at erratic times on its own, and it is damned inconvenient. It makes me believe in all the old wives’ tales about aging. It’s uncontrollable, it’s troublesome. It’s definitely NOT your golden years.
So what’s an aging person supposed to do, other than just ignore the annoyances and hope they don’t increase? I prefer to use them as life lessons. I quote Robert Browning to myself: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Rather than bemoaning my increasing difficulty in moving, say an inability to skip down the sidewalk or the hardening of various parts of my body (called sclerosis), I simply adjust my goals. Congratulate myself on reaching my downsized objectives.
One of those now is to double the times I go up and down the stairs. I figure a normal number for this task is ten times a day. If I double it, going up and down twice each trip, I’ll surely burn at least ten calories a trip. That’s one hundred a day, and projected into the future, 3000 a month. I could conceivably lose a pound a month simply by doubling my stairclimbing! I’m also maintaining muscle tone.
I’m now devoting myself to determining other good consequences from getting old. For example, I don’t have to be embarrassed about my performance in the gym. I’m so old people are astounded I’m just attempting to lift weights. They don’t comment on how little I lift. They think it’s wonderful I can perform any exercises on the equipment.
Additional benefits I’ve discovered have to do with my self-image and spirit. Things that are better now that I’m old often have to do with relaxing and enjoying the now. What this affects is reviewing my own and society’s expectations to decide if I’m really interested. Example: When I see some young and hardy couple laboring under huge backpacks as they approach a mountain trail or set up a tent, I feel not a twinge of regret. That type of physical achievement is beyond my capability, and I no longer ask myself to do them.
Appearances are taking a much lower value. I don’t have to be constantly trying to lose weight. Who cares? Few people notice us oldies, even fewer find us appealing. My husband and I have overheard several people who comment “How cute” when we hold hands to pass them on the walking trail, but other than that, no praise. I welcome my vast relief to dump all calorie-counting efforts of the past. Ditto any concern about makeup. Who can tell what I look like with all these wrinkles?
Great, overwhelming, expensive plans—a trip around the world, underwriting to fund a national campaign to dethrone a political nutcase—are no longer feasible Since at my age, I’ve learned I can’t anticipate how many years, months, or days I might have, I don’t have to hoard for a major expensive project. Piles of gold heaped up in a bank do me no good. I prefer to simply have fun myself or provide benefits to my fellow human beings while I can appreciate it.
Age breeds nonchalance and humbleness. Whom should I be impressing? No one. I prefer to think and act on my pea-brained ideas. I’ve donated to more GoFundMe wishes this year than I have for the entire preceding 20 years. Penny-pinching relatives can count on a sympathetic hearing from me to implement their pie-in-the-sky dreams. Now is the time for me to take chances while I still can.
Automatically, I’ve become a member of the Little Old Ladies Who Run the Country. As we’re living our quiet, nondescript lives, we’re inheriting about 70% of the $124 trillion in national assets over the course of the next 25 years. What are we up to? I’ll never tell, but we can safely ignore everyone else’s ideas and wishes. Just imagine what we could do if all the grannies, nannies, gammies, aunties, mimis, memaws, abuelitas, bubbes, and we work together? How about renaming the Kennedy Center, the Old Ladies Center for the Performing Arts? Or creating a peace force in the Middle East organized as the Disengagement Observers Stabilization and Interim Security Force Mission whose generals would be a minimum of 75 years old? Those of us in that category certainly understand that peace at this cost would be well worth spending.
To turn to the practical, what benefits am I gaining by being part of the oldest generation? One that comes to mind immediately because I run across it every time I’m out in public: women as well as men spring into action to hold doors open for me. Aside from this traditional courtesy, finance is another arena, and I’ve always wondered about deductions going to the age group that already has the most money. Typical senior discounts run from 10% to 30% on meals, lodging, and entertainment. Health care services have expanded into this arena, too. So my age gives me an automatic advantage.
Another advantage from getting older is of the mixed sort. I feel a decrease in me of competitiveness. This is partly due to the withdrawal of potential competitors in respect of my aging condition. I now could be known as emeritus, an honorary label given to distinguished retirees. I admit I never have been much of a competitor. This is probably due to my lack of athletic prowess. I’ve always been very short and incompetent at physical skills. If you think of leaders of all sorts, they frequently are well built and physically facile. So basketball stars become members of Congress, gymnasts advance into spokespeople for marketing campaigns, homecoming queens evolve into presidents of organizations. In addition, there’s a theory that women are more proficient in building coalitions and sharing duties and power than men, to the advantage of whatever group, committee or organization they’re working with. This reduces pressures on me to continually, and usually unsuccessfully, be at the top or to be a winner in social interactions and competitions.
So on the whole, I’m becoming resigned to being old. Aging has its own rewards, and I intend to continue reaping them as long as possible.
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