Butchblog

Aging—its joys and discontents

I go to bed late and wake up early. I’m groggy when I get up and stay that way for another hour or so while I drink my espresso and read the depressing headlines in the New York Times. I can’t blame those bad news tidings on my old age, but the rest of the scene I think I can. I’m afraid it’s part of the slow degradation of aging. I’m writing here, obviously, of my particular experience of this phenomenon. Maybe others my age wake up perky, pain-free, and ready to take on the day. Good for them. That’s not me. I’m feeling my years these days, both physically and mentally.

            Over the past decade I’ve had two back surgeries, my gall-bladder removed, had two total knee replacements, and a few painful kidney stone episodes. Ouch. It could have been worse. Again, people have their own stories. This is mine. All of those surgeries were successful, even though they took me out of commission for long periods of time. And if I hadn’t had the support of my wife, Bev, I might have given up long ago. But I do have her support and that of my daughters, and despite this tone of negativity, I’ve managed to maintain a desire to keep going. There have always been lots of things I’ve wanted to do and have done: writing, surfing, teaching, laughing with friends, watching the Phillies play baseball. You get the idea. And, for all my whining, I’m not in bad shape for an old geezer. I told Bev that I’m still the same weight I was in college, which is true; it’s just that the pounds go different places now. I also had hair back in the day, but that receded like the low tides well before I got old.

            What am I trying to say here? Well, except for the obvious—that being the painful and inexorable degradations of old age—I want to acknowledge the battle to hang on, to continue to enjoy life, and to try to stay alert and relevant. The question is how?

            One of the prominent daily issues that comes up for me and for just about everybody I know in my age range, is our increasing forgetfulness. We forget words—names and all nouns are the biggies. Sometimes I forget why I walked into a room in our house. I know there was a reason, but now have no idea what it was. When my dad was even younger than I am now, we had to take away his car keys after he drove off from the house, stopped dead at the corner and couldn’t decide whether to go left or right. He sat there for over ten minutes, before turning around and coming back home. The other day, after turning on the TV, I blanked on which buttons to push on the remote, a task I do multiple times every day. The sequence came back to me, but it was scary, an indication of loss of acuity. That’s what aging does to the brain. And what if it continues down that path?  It did for Dad. The last time I saw him, many years ago, He asked, “How’s it going out there?”  Then asked it again, “How’s it going out there?” and again and again. “Fine,” I kept responding till I had to leave the room.

            So now I’m eight years older than Dad was then, but my mind is clearer. I do the New York Times Spelling Bee every day and don’t quit till I’ve reached at least the genius level and play Words With Friends and Scrabble. I think it helps. And I have a daily writing schedule and go body boarding as often as the waves and my aches allow. Bev and I still travel regularly, though our last trip was challenging physically for both of us. I think my most important tactic, though, is to simply keep moving—physically, socially, and mentally. Once you give any of those up, you’re just counting the days.

            I know, as every sentient being does, that there’s always an end point. When I was young, I rarely thought about it. One of  the unappreciated joys of youth. I still don’t obsess over dying, but I do pay attention and make the necessary preparations. But while I’m still here, I’m going to keep on enjoying my life. And when I no longer can, I plan to go out on my own terms. At least that’s the plan. And you know how plans sometimes go.