“I’m falling apart,” I overheard a woman say. “This is what happens when you get old.”
She actually looked too young to join AARP.
I have noticed that aging, for some, has become a receptacle for almost any problem for which a solution is not at the ready. It’s like a large trash bin waiting to be filled with the wrong items. It sits, conveniently placed, so you can throw in anything that comes to mind.
Lost your glasses? Part of getting old.
Toothache, headache, backache, muscle aches, upset tummy? Old age.
Forgot you had something on the stove? Age-related memory loss.
The other evening when the oven timer beeped I walked into the kitchen to retrieve my baked potato and found it sitting on the counter next to the stove. It was washed and poked with holes to keep it from exploding. Even had a little canola oil rubbed on the skin. Well done on the prep, Patricia. Now if only you had actually put it in the oven an hour ago.
Even though I was hungry, I started to laugh. And this is something I love about this time in my life … I laugh at myself a lot. I’m fine to have silly conversations with my cat and more important ones with the moon. Does that mean I worry less? Not necessarily. It’s just that I have more defined priorities and small mishaps are not on my list.
In contrast when I had a similar potato issue in my Greenwich Village apartment, I wasn’t laughing. I couldn’t blame it on old age since I was in my twenties.
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When the younger me forgot to put the potato in the oven, she was annoyed, but never entertained the idea of having a memory problem. Now I have just faced the fact that I have this thing with potatoes.
Admittedly, there are many behaviors and health issues that are related to aging. But why this rush to blame everything on it? Does it make people somehow feel safer to think that their ills are just normal aging and therefore not their fault?
As for me, I’m happy sitting here at my computer in the middle of the night having this conversation with my readers.
Email patrciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Visit her on X @patriciabunin and at patriciabunin.com.
