Aging

Hair Affair

During the summer of 1968, Robert Kennedy was assassinated, Richard Nixon was nominated, the Detroit Tigers won the World Series, and I got my hair cut.

In retrospect, a trip to the beauty salon doesn’t qualify as very important in comparison to other world events. But I was 12 years old, and other than occasional trimming of split ends, my last real haircut was before I started kindergarten. I had been lobbying - pestering, cajoling, and bargaining - to get my hair cut throughout the entirety of 6th grade. Finally, my parents conceded. But the hair cut had a price - before I got the chin length bob I wanted so badly, I had to sit for a formal photograph featuring my dark, thick, wavy, waist length hair.

, ,

This is Me At 63

, ,

I published my first blog post 13 years ago yesterday. At age 50, I felt myself poised on “the second half of my century on earth,” and was itching for a way to explore that particular position in with writing. Little did I know what would come of that blog - Becca’s Byline, it was called. It led to thousands of words written in the work of making sense of Life In General (and my own in particular.) It led to a deeper exploration of my creative thinking. It led to new confidence in my abilities, and to the eventual publication of two books of collected essays.

But most importantly, it led to a network of connections, many of which are still viable today, even though I’ve never met some of these people in real life (IRL). As an introvert, an only child, a solitary somewhat melancholy soul, connection with others - both like minded and contrary - is vital to my mental health. In a recent interview on NPR, Mary Pipher, author of a new book about aging entitled Women Rowing North, said that as women enter old age their friends are their mental health insurance policy. I believe that statement with my whole heart, and I’m blessed to have a robust and multifaceted “policy” in my circle of amazing friends.

Which is why, at age 63 (as of yesterday) I’m recommitting to writing here at, even though many people say blogging as a platform is dead. I still think its a marvelous way of connecting with people - less public than social media and therefore less noisy and hectic. Blogs seem like a quieter, safer neighborhood in which to gather, more like inviting a select group into your living room than standing on a street corner shouting at one another. My plan is to open this door for you every other Sunday and I hope you’ll stop by, have some coffee or a glass of wine, and connect with me on the page about life in all its glory.

Aging Autonomously

One evening last week, a neighbor came by and dropped off this book. “After I read your post about caring for your Mom,” she told me, “I thought you might find this interesting.” 

It’s a book that’s been on my reading list ever since I read this article in the New Yorker a few weeks back. Dr. Gawande is initiating an important discussion for those of us caring for aging parents, and for those of us facing old age in the not-too-distant future. It’s a discussion about the limitations and failures of modern medicine as we know it in geriatric care, and why sometimes the quest for quantity of life impedes the ability to foster quality of life instead. 

My neighbor remarked that, since both of her adult children lived in different states, she and her husband were aware that a time would come when they would most likely need to move to be near one of them. “But then, we realize you can’t be chasing your children,” she admitted. “People don’t stay in one place for decades and decades now - not like we did when we were young."

Being in the same circumstances, we too have given that situation some thought. Recalling how much assistance my elderly relatives have needed in their final years, it occurs to us that we should be planning for that eventuality. Still, I can’t help but think about one of my former neighbors, an elderly couple who had lived in their home in Redford for 50 years. All their children lived in mid-Ohio, and, after much urging from the adult children, this couple decided to move to Ohio  so they “wouldn’t have to depend on the neighbors to help them.” I have never forgotten how bereft my neighbor was after the move, how he called me on several occasions and spoke of how much he “hated” it there, how he was “coming back to Redford” and was going to “buy his house back.” Within two years, both he and his wife were dead. It hurts me to know those last two years of his life were such unhappy ones for him. 

I was talking to my son on the phone the other night, and I jokingly made a comment that’s haunted me a ever since. “Take care of yourself,” I told him, “you know I’m counting on you to be around to take care of me when I’m old."

It’s a mark of how much this caretaking thing is on my mind, that in the midst of a conversation that was mostly about my son and his current stresses and strains, I would think of a scenario which is - I hope - many years in the offing. And the ironic thing is  that I have never consciously “counted on him” to take care of me. On the contrary, my thoughts on the subject gravitate to insuring my independence as long as is humanly possible. The last thing I ever want is to need him in that way. 

Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, we live longer lives, if not always better ones. So how do we prepare for the possible infirmities that propel us into dependency? The best offense is a good defense, I think. It’s finding appropriate housing and support services before you really need them, not waiting until memory lapses, poor reflexes, or failing joints and organs force a need for assistance with the business of daily living. There are more options for those services than there were in the past, and more keep cropping up all the time. A huge market is opening up in the field of services for the aging, as those of us born post WWII begin to get old in droves. They aren’t cheap, of course. What will they cost in another 20 years? God only knows. 

But autonomy -at least to me - is priceless. It’s about more than being able to drive yourself to the market or take your medications on time. It’s about having the wherewithal to be in charge of what happens to you. As the body ages, there is so much that is completely out of our control, no matter how well we’ve followed the advice of all those healthy living experts out there. (Just the other morning I shifted position while reading in bed and I was horrified to notice how the skin on my inner arms looked as wrinkled as an alligator. This despite years of smoothing moisturizing creams and lotions on them every morning and evening.)

Give me the ability to have some freedom of choice about how and where I spend my final years. “Whatever the limits and travails we face,” Dr. Gawande writes, “we want to retain the autonomy - the freedom - to be the authors of our lives. This is the very marrow of being human.” I’ve shepherded a lot of people through old age and into death, and each one of these dearly beloveds have been my teacher. In my heart I believe they were entrusted to me for a reason - so that I might one day have the foreknowledge to be the “author of my life” in a more meaningful way than they did.

 

On Aging

Here in my online world, Wednesday’s are the days I’ve been writing about being creative, about writing, and inspiration, and process. But in my Real World, every Wednesday is “Mom’s Day.” It the day of the week I drive into our old neighborhood and pick up my mom, take her to her favorite grocery or specialty fruit market, and the drugstore if she’s up to it. It’s the day I make sure I’m at her house to take out the garbage or do any other household things that she’s willing for me to do.