RSF&PTL
It's all true, you know, the warnings about what happens to us in our aging, and that especially into extreme old age. Just some or a few of those dire things.
We easily get dizzy, becoming subject to falling, a primary cause of death among the elderly; many of us take to leaning forward and looking down at where we are going, for fear of tripping. I take two dizzy pills a day, one morning and one evening, that seem definitely to help.
We lose things, misplace things and minutes or seconds later cannot remember where we laid them. I've pretty much got it down for my wallet and my keys, but where the hell is my cell phone that I had in my hand five minutes ago? Even with the brightly flowered cover that I put on it so I could see it, I can't find it.
Vision dims and we need eyeglasses; hearing and we need hearing aids.
We struggle for words. For the life of us, we can't remember names, and so fear offending people who are dear to us.
In my own case, at seminary I was taught, and developed the practice, of investing a minimum of 18 to 24 hours in drafting a sermon and working it down to ten to twelve minutes max. I used to write them on Sunday afternoon and hone them through the week, with Linda helping me. Nowadays Sunday afternoons are a dead zone, but I start two or three weeks ahead of Time, fiddle with a rough draft early mornings, and try to remember to say only what's intriguing, as Linda used to remind me, "You don't need to tell them everything you know, you know!"
On radio (we had no television and no internet) back in the nineteen-forties or early fifties there was a song, "Life gits teejus, don't it!"
What I find is that life does NOT get tedious, Life is Fun and Good (plus, as the preacher says, "We haven't much Time'), and as one arrives in and passes Through (and eventually From - - knock wood, toss salt, wishing me long years) the Times of life, through school, through leaving home, through careers, through middle age, through children growing up and leaving us desolate, into and through old age; and for the fortunate ("or perhaps not so fortunate" as Maugrim the Wolf, Chief of the evil Queen's secret police told Edmund before showing him into Her Majesty's furious, raging presence*) perhaps even into extreme old age, life becomes a constant challenge.
It takes both of us to drive anywhere, one to turn the steering wheel, one to watch where we are heading and keep watch for other cars. It takes two to remember where the pliers are. For a while it took two, but now that I've it down to a standard practice, I know where my keys are, and I know where I put my wallet. Sometimes my coffee pot's not ready to turn on mornings because Linda only said, "Be sure to make your coffee" once, and then let me down by failing to remind me a second Time.
Some challenges are eliminated by simplifying. When I retired from parish ministry in 1998, I quit wearing a watch, and I quit carrying a pocket calendar, both of which I was constantly losing track of, what a relief. When cellphones came along, it added a challenge back on, but it's still better trying to keep track of one thing instead of two. I gave up my favorite sport of car shopping, now I drive a ten year old Volvo with 113,000 miles and a trusted shop keeps it safe and comfortable for us. We quit getting the newspaper every morning, now Linda gets the news via TV, I get the news online, and I get Linda's crossword puzzles online. And, for when the devil drives me to car shop, I've got a icon on my computer desktop that instantly connects me to Cramer GM.
Time, I've got Time, in fact, it's ALL I've got. So, a small stack of books beside me here to read, several books and the latest couple of issues of my lifelong favorite magazines. Life is Never tedious, Life is Fun and Good, my overweight has been steady for the past thirty-eight years (when I was forty-nine, a parishioner told me, "Tom, if you don't lose that stomach before you're fifty, you'll never be able to lose it." For a year, under strict guidance of a VA nutritionist counselor, I lost back down to my weight when I retired from the Navy in 1978, but within two years all but ten pounds of it was back on, so I'm trying to live out my life feeling okay about myself anyway.
Breakfast out here on 7H porch: large mug of hot & black, one slice of liver sausage on thin-sliced whole wheat bread, with mayo and a shake of parmesan cheese.
Life is Fun & Good, the eastern sky is showing a bit of light, and praise the Lord.
RSF&PTL
T
* C S Lewis, "The Chronicles of Narnia," in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"