How quickly things change. It's fall, again...my 84th!
Nights are cooler than last month, day are shorter (YUK), leaves are changing, deer coats have gone from brown to gray and I wore my first pair of big boy pants yesterday. The garden is slowing down...okra, peppers and eggplant fading, collards and cabbage are kicking butt. I received word Walmart has Christmas Decor in stock.
We are approaching my least favorite time of year. Long cold nights and short unpredictable days. Grey, white, brown are not my favorite colors...but living in the South, winters ain't that bad. I had my 20 years in WV. A friend in Vermont and moved here. He remarked on his first summer here that in Vermont summer consisted of July 4th and 2 weeks of poor sledding. He was amazed that you could do stuff outside all year in Georgia.
One of my Ah Ha moments of change came one night a few years ago as i lay in bed on my stomach, reading. I looked up to see and old man staring at me through the window only to recognise the reflection in the window was my own self!
I started laughing.
Janice called from the other room, "What's so funny?"
"There's an old man looking at me through the window!"
"Nothing new about that, I see that same old man everyday!"
Hmmm!
Further down the rabbit hole...
I never went to the doctor much until I did. Now our life's event planning revolves around Dr. appts. I don't know really how that started, but the same malady seems to be afflicting everyone I know. It get in the way of civil society. The scenario goes thusly.
I say, "Hey, let's go play some tunes with so and so tomorrow." "I'd like to, but I got a Dr. appointment; you know, if you miss one you'll have to wait for 2 years to get another one." or "I've got to take Mama to her Dr. appt. today, can we do it next week? I've got cataract surgery tomorrow."
I'm an early 1941 model human bean, and doing pretty well, I think. "My Chart" seems to think otherwise. I suppose my medical specialist are just that...they see more and more of less and less.
The the picture they paint is not rosy; you got a heart is weak, your eyes can't see, you have terrible knees, you need two shoulder replacement...and a new hip followed by, you need to lose 60 pounds, plus, you have high cholesterol, your A1C ain't where I'd like it...and that's just the beginning. Time to jack me up and put a new me under the old one?
I suppose they want to keep us octogenarians around as an investment in their children's college education. The Hippocratic Oath our Doctor's take; Do No Harm is encouraging, but their prognosis after the probe and scan will scare hell out of you. I can guarantee you there is always another pill after a visit to the Medical Complex. The vultures in the Pharmacy are just across the street.
I'm sure my insurance company would like to be rid of me...and hundreds and thousands of "baby boomers" who affect their bottom line.
It might come to just that...health care as we know it for old people might just dry up. "Ya'll just hurry up and die...we can't afford you baby boomers anymore." I hope to keep going as long as they make spare parts. My siblings and I are on the right side of 80. Every TV add seems to be a new pill to cure everything from flat feet to falling down stairs, ie "You're old, grey and only in the way, obsolete, retired and need of 30 pills a day."
Some days I feel so damned unnecessary. AI, Bit Coin, cars that drive for you and talk to you. Car ads seem to tout the sound system, leather seats and air bags, and climbing sand dunes in a mimi van... not the reliability of the vehicle.
How do old folks navigate such? Your own your own...pretty much. Don't have a computer, lap top, tablet, cell phone? Might as well be in a time capsule or a museum for extinct life forms. Indeed, things change faster than a shooting star and the technology disappears just as fast, replaced by some other gadget.
But, friends, I have to say, as I look around at what my wife and I have accomplished at the end of our long dirt road: the pottery shop, tractor shed, green house, acquisition of another 15 acres, improvements to the property, things have changed. More importantly, it is still quiet peaceful, and I can take an outdoor shower without the police showing up and arresting me for indecent exposure.
That may change...this place used to be a cotton field in 1948 according to Dept. of Agriculture photos taken after WW2.
WHAT! that was nearly a century ago. I'm 84! How'd that happen!
I think we should all embrace changes in our lifestyles as we age...we don't have a choice really. Here are my suggestions:
Love and cherish those who you do...they are the rope that will pull you out of any hole you dig.
Take time to watch a good sunset, and may you have earned a porch swing from which to enjoy it and reflect on your day's accomplishment (s) with a glass of wine and a partner.
Play and work as you can; don't sit with the sitters and knit with the knitters. Enjoy and nurture friends. They are your lifeline to the past...the ones who remember when.
Above all remember we, all of us, will relinquish our place in the choir to another voice...again and again and again. We will be remembered as long as someone says our name.
It is the Way.😎
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