I just noticed I am
growing older. There is a French expression: “coup de vieux” which means “a hit of old.” What this means is that
we tend to plateau for quite a while, nothing seems to change much, and then suddenly
within a day or so we get older. This just happened to me. I was priding myself
at how young and vital I felt, and then last week I told a friend, “You should join
my Bible class, we're studying Islam.” And she said, “I am in your Bible
class!” Oops! Even though I wear hearing aids, I strain more to hear people,
and even though I wear glasses, I squint more to see fine print.
And now something else is
beginning to happen. I was always the kind of person to go everywhere, do
everything, meet everyone—ready for that next adventure. I have become hesitant
about leaving my home. I was the first woman to be inducted into the San Diego
downtown Rotary back in 1987 and hardly ever missed the Thursday lunches; now I
think twice about getting myself up to go and have begun to miss meetings for
no other reason but that “I'm a bit tired today.”
Last year I attended my
granddaughter’s wedding in Toronto with no problem and much joy. This year I'm
hesitating to go to my youngest grandson's graduation from medical school, also
in Canada. It feels like “too much.”
So the question I keep
asking myself is “should I push myself or give in to staying put?” I don't know
the answer. On one hand, I don't want to give up on the pleasure I get from
doing fun stuff, but, on the other hand, I wonder whether I can give myself
permission to stop running around like the proverbial chicken without a head and
stay home with a good book—which is in fact my favorite occupation. I try to
live intelligently. By this I mean I eat healthily, I exercise regularly, my
brain is stimulated (I'm writing this column!), I have friends… So what's
wrong?
I have often wondered why
some of my healthy, elderly friends don’t go to cultural events when it is so
easy with the White Sands bus providing the transportation. All of a sudden I
understand: an evening out feels like too much effort, and the idea of going
home and doing nothing sounds like heaven.
They say that at my age (I’m
87), whatever does not dry out, leaks! So far I am doing neither, but I fell
yesterday in my apartment—I was carrying a heavy flower pot and slipped. I did
not hurt myself, but my balance gave way. I was sitting on the floor with the
usual feeling of shock when one falls thinking, “Shoot! I'm getting old!”
Somehow neither my age
nor my new feelings compute. Just yesterday I was a spring chicken and suddenly
I have become an old hen. The ad for my upcoming book signing at Warwick’s calls
me a “Trailblazing Octogenarian.” I was literally taken aback. Is that me? So
my job now is to mentally catch up with my chronological age instead of being
in denial that I too am aging. The signs are there, shall I honor them or
ignore them? I still have not decided.
Caring
about Not Caring
The things I used to
care about
I no longer do
but I really do care
that I don’t care
about the things
I used to care about
Copyright © 2014. Natasha
Josefowitz. All rights reserved.
