Notes on being old

This is my ex­pe­ri­ence, dear read­ers, for those of you who may be old like me, need­ing help yet men­tally alert. It may or may not be use­ful to any­one else. As the song goes: “Let’s start at the very be­gin­ning...”

The night. I find the first hours of the night, even with pills, quite with­out sleep. What I don’t do is lie there and think. Ac­tion is re­quired. I get up, go to an­other room (I’m up­stairs) and read. I read a book I’m en­joy­ing – noth­ing vi­o­lent or up­set­ting. To­wards four o’clock, or bet­ter still, five o’clock, I can’t read any longer so I get back into bed and usu­ally sleep well until nine o’clock, vis­i­tors per­mit­ting.

When I wake up I de­cide to be cheer­ful. You know the say­ing: “Smile and the world smiles with you; cry and you cry alone.” No-one wants to be greeted by a grumpy old per­son. The paid help or one of my daugh­ters helps me to have a shower or a wash and to get dressed. De­pend­ing on the weather, I am pushed in my wheel­chair and have a ride down to the end of the drive and then I have a short walk on the arm of my helper.

Then we have break­fast and I feel re­freshed and happy. This is easy for me be­cause there are views of the hills and forests all around and trees and flow­ers in the gar­den. After break­fast, in or out­side, weather per­mit­ting, it is time for a read. I’m sure to ask the helper how their night has been. They have lives, too. I keep a strict rule not to dwell on the past when I was in­de­pen­dent and a dri­ver. “What’s past is past,” I re­mind my­self.

I’m helped in this by hav­ing two cats and a dog as per­ma­nent com­pany. We share our lives. I try to live in the ’now’ mo­ment. Each day is dif­fer­ent and only the pre­sent mo­ment is liv­ing. I sup­pose you could call it ’mind­ful­ness’, al­though I’m not keen on nam­ing things. And so the day goes on. When I’m walk­ing on some­one’s arm, arm tight by my side, we often meet peo­ple pass­ing by. Some stop, smile and have a chat. Oth­ers, in their cars, drive by, eyes straight ahead. I be­come in­vis­i­ble be­cause they are em­bar­rassed and not friendly. I don’t let it get me down; I’m so grate­ful to be in my own home and en­joy­ing life.

Do I think of death? Some­times. Like many peo­ple, I don’t mind dying, it’s just the man­ner in which one dies. Relax. There’s noth­ing I can do about that.

My mother used to say when she was old­ish “You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.” I have no such il­lu­sion. Yes, for a while, but each mem­ber of the fam­ily is liv­ing their own ups and downs. Hope­fully, any re­mem­brance of me may be pleas­ant. Well, I’m not dead yet, so, also hope­fully, ’on­wards and up­wards’ with this blessed life! And I mean blessed.