Older is NOT Better

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Today is my birthday. I have to "do the math" anymore to figure out how old I am. Let's see, 2008 - 1951 = Yikes!

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Because I am completely unemployed, I have sort of lost my compass. I try hard to get enough exercise everyday, but it ain't what it used to be when I was up and out the door every morning walking a mile to the train and back again at night, feeling the pulse of the city, being connected with people, bitching about how little time I had to do my own work. And there are days when I ...

This can be an opportunity, or a disaster.

It's raining now, for which I am grateful; at least it's not snow. The cold gets harder to take with each passing year. The years are more like hours now. Why is that? T. flew out to the Left Coast a couple of days ago at the request of his aging & [f]ailing father, who heretofore had had almost nothing to do with him (as in, never visited, didn't come to our wedding, etc). Certain that the end was near, T. didn't hesitate to catch the first flight out. But, as with my own parents, this seems to have turned into just the first of many dreary emergencies, which will culminate in a transfer to a nursing home and all the attendant messy details about cleaning out the house and getting his bills paid. F. isn't ready to die, even though he signed on for hospice care.

I remember when hospice care was a new concept, supposed to alleviate the depredations of the medical industry and allow people to die with dignity on their own terms. It has become institutionalized such that I fear it is now just another fancy option you can sign up for, not really knowing the implications. But then, who ever knows the implications of dying. Having no children to sit by my bedside and lurch me over to the commode now and then, I would hope for a modicum of comfort (as in pain control and cleanliness) and a few "Aha" moments before the lights go out for the last time.

May I say that I was shocked & exhausted by the amount of physical work, mental torture and personal sacrifice it took to get my mother through the transition from independence to complete nursing care. Thankfully, her health has actually improved (to the point where she is feisty enough to feel imprisoned by the circumstances), but she won't be going home anymore. Besides, where is home for her?

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So I am alone on my birthday and since we had to ditch our Thanksgiving plans, I guess I'll try to use all this time to do "my own" work.