I am going to be 65 in January. I know, I know. I look (and act) a lot younger. In certain lighting I could be mistaken for 45.
That lighting may or may not consist of a pitch-black room with a battery-operated candle on a table in the next room, but whatever. I am mentally youthful. I think the one-word definition of that is “immature” but I’m not sure.
My husband George is 18 months younger than me. So when I turn 65, he will be 63 for six months till his birthday in June. Don’t think he doesn’t remind me of this fact every year. He tells people I used to babysit him when we were kids. Funny guy.
Let’s face it. Getting older is not for the meek. The aches, the pains, the forgetfulness, the repeating oneself, the changing eyesight, the repeating of oneself…..it’s all part of this crazy thing called life. I am thankful for every year, every day. It’s a privilege that many, unfortunately, do not get to enjoy. But there’s a definitely different set of behaviors and attitudes that come with aging.
For example, George has become obsessed with food expiration dates. I am fairly sure that over the years, we were eating expired stuff. Not now. He scours everything with a date on it, after first bringing it into a better lighted area so he can read the print. And then he announces, rather loudly, “Well, THIS is old” and gleefully throws it away.
Both of us are experiencing some degree of hearing deficiencies. George has freely admitted that his deficiency is often selective. Translated, that means he filters out my voice and responds to only what he chooses. I have a bad habit of yelling something to him from another room. Of course, he can’t hear what I’m saying, so he has to stop what he’s doing and come to me to make me repeat it. His mother used to do that. I hated when she did it to me, but now, strangely, I’m enjoying mimicking her.
Deciding what to have for dinner is a comedy of errors. George will suggest, say, chicken and broccoli. My response is, “I can’t eat broccoli. It interacts with my medication.” Or I’ll say, “Let’s just do soup and sandwiches,” and his response consists of him turning his head to the side and making a spitting sound that goes something like this: puh puh puh. I say, “I guess that’s a hard no?”
We can debate where to put a candle in our living room for a half hour. We (okay, I) order stuff online a lot so we (I) don’t have to go out and pick it up. We have discussions on the prices of groceries, the gardens, the dogs, the laundry, the extended weather forecast; stupefying to anyone who may be within earshot and mildly alarming to our kids.
Here’s an example of some of our stimulating conversations:
Me: Why do we need these incessant commercials about toilet paper?
George (looking at his phone): I don’t know.
Me: Seriously. Are there people who are NOT buying toilet paper?
George: I don’t know.
Me: We all buy it so quit pushing it down our throats with these commercials. Right?
George: I don’t know.
Or,
George (shoving a towel under my nose while I’m working): Do these towels smell musty?
Me: Can you get it out of my face?
George (moving the towel back a half-inch): Well, does it?
Me: No.
George: I think it does.
Me: Your grandmother smells musty.
Or,
Me (again with the commercials): I hate these commercials advertising medication.
George (looking at his phone. Again): Yeah.
Me: This is Big Pharma at its worst. All propaganda. We’re all lab rats.
George: Yeah.
Me: Are you listening to me?
George (looking away from his phone): Huh? Were you talking to me?
I joke about all this, but I am actually proud of my age and eternally thankful that I am where I am. Here’s a quote from Zig Ziglar that sums says it all: “Wrinkles mean you laughed, gray hair means you cared, and scars mean you lived.” I’d add: “Aches mean you’re alive.”
Ilene Black has been a resident of Ewing for most of her life and lives across the street from her childhood home. She and her husband, George, have two sons, Georgie and Donnie.
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