Aging Continued

I could weep and become ever more depressed as I feel my body not being able to adjust to my old active lifestyle. But it is just adjustment. I can still ride my bike, walk a bit, ski some, go up and down stairs, and keep my mind active with books, cross word puzzles, laughter, and research.I test myself at times and try to remember what I had eaten, and I keep a journal. I remove weeds but I have to stoop to do that as a knee doesn't want me to kneel quite yet. i found a Towhee nest the other day at the base of my poppies. There was one last year. The fledglings are almost ready to fly by the time we get back, thank goodness, as the cat likes stalking little squeaky things.

To age is to make it to the top of the life hill and start descending down the other side. It is to be told when you go in for a physical check up, 'oh you don't have to do that test anymore'. I get it, it won't matter and we won't fix it! I still monitor all those things in my mind as I don't want to go out debilitated and in pain! So what would I do? Deal with it. Since we have lived where we live, at least three people have taken the life force into their own hands and ended it. One swam out into the Bay until she could no longer swim and then washed up on shore. Another rowed out into the Bay and disappeared. And another shot herself in her car near the same Bay. I think my Dad just starved himself. He wanted one of us to bring him a gun and we wouldn't. So he stopped eating. He wanted to go but his life force wasn't ready so he had to take his own measures. In those last months we connected. I heard a lot of things he wanted to remember. Even though I was a woman, he could talk to me. He had an old fashioned opinion that women should be in the home, and that was all they were good for, homemaking! But maybe he found out finally that that wasn't so! So could I take my life force and remove it? I don't know.

One wants to age with some sort of dignity. If my mind goes, I won't know if I am dignified or not, and won't care. Others will have to deal with me and that is a hard thought. But as long as I can get up in the AM, shower, and dress and feed myself I will be happy. All the other things will fall into place.

So it is the body failing to do its job that determines your aging pattern. Changes occur. But my dream is that my husband and I can live in our house, take care of each other, and when we can't it will end. No burden to our kids, just happy memories. Going to have to work on this scenario and make sure it happens. A dog is softly breathing behind my chair. I looked and she has a paw over her muzzle. Pretty cute. I am so easy!