I stood at the stove for about 5 minutes watching my eggs not cook before I realized I had turned on the wrong burner. I looked around as if I was worried someone might have caught me in such a gaffe, but the only one who might possibly be in my kitchen at breakfast time is Angelo and I’m fairly certain he’s had the same thing happen to him and wouldn’t point it out. Either that or he wouldn’t notice/hear/see at all. His typical cooking gaffe though is leaving the burner on after he successfully identifies the correct one to use.
That’s what this is like—getting older. Little signs here and there that things are breaking down. Elasticity, memory . . .bones. My last doctor ordered a bone scan for me, but I forgot to get it done. In my defense, my insurance plan stopped letting me go to that doctor, so maybe the new one that I haven’t found yet will still want the scan. But who knows? And who remembers?
But the signs keep showing up, like little green dandelion stems pushing up through the lawn. You notice one here…and then there…and then another one. But soon the whole lawn is covered in the damn things and you don’t know where to start yanking them out. That’s like the signs of aging: which one do you pay attention to first? The memory? The knees? The hearing?
I remember one of the first times I visited my parents after they moved to Florida. They had their own home at the time and it was lovely—ceiling fans in every room, a screened in porch, wide open floor plan, well-lit kitchen. At some point, Mom popped a frozen bran muffin into the microwave to defrost and a minute later, the most horrendous and blaring sound came from the kitchen. I ran in to see what had happened. “Is that the fire alarm?” I yelled, covering my ears, ready to steer my parents away from danger. Mom looked at me, puzzled at first—“Oh, no,” she said, turning to the oven and pulling open the door. “The muffin’s done!” All of Florida has the volume turned up to make sure everyone hears everything.
So far, as I head to my middle sixties, I’m lucky enough to feel pretty good and have relatively reliable use of most of my limbs and organs, but the signs are there. The latest thing is thinking I’m doing a good job at something and later realizing I maybe hadn’t. This first showed up when I went back to teaching; I went back during the pandemic, so all my classes were online. Virtual learning was for all of us—me and the students. When I would forget to post an assignment or submit grades, I chalked it up to getting used to doing everything online—I’d get the hang of it soon enough. I helped myself by making sure I made little notes on my daily lesson plans to remember to post the homework or email a student about a paper. But when we went back to in-person classes, I realized I was still having to use the same support—writing nearly everything down.
For me, that’s the hardest thing about getting older; all of those skills and abilities I used to do by rote—and was good at—are now showing signs of, well, age. I think I’m doing something right like cooking or teaching and I find out minutes to days later—I didn’t. I forgot something, I didn’t stay on top of another thing. I didn’t do it right. This same frustration is echoed in nearly all my friends’ laments. Even opening a dish cupboard is different because I miscalculate the distance (seeing? distractedness?) and bang my finger into the handle. Ouch! And dammit!
But even as I write this; even as I fumble and bumble into my dotage with fewer skills or just forgotten ones, I know this: I’m still grateful for what I do have. If I’ve learned any lessons at all in the last several decades (that I recall) it’s that all of this so-so health and questionable intelligence I’m enjoying could change in a minute. I’ll keep the notepads, ear buds (for the tinnitus) and vitamin supplements. And going forward—hopefully--there are many, many additional products that can ease my advancing years and provide me with shiny hair, assist my vision, cool my hot flashes and lower my blood pressure. I have everything I need.
Except a bone scan.
Always love your writing and humor. Read the essay to my husband and brother, as we, who at ten years older, nod, and say, “Yes, we used to do that . . . didn’t we?”
We definitely have a lot in common...lol