Category Archives: the exile of age

Is that all there is?

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“Is that all there is? Is that all there is? If that’s all there is, my friends, then let’s keep dancing. Let’s break out the booze and have a ball. If that’s all there is”.

Is that all there is for too many of us folks who have made it thus far into our 80th decade? Isolation? Boredom? Loneliness? Disconnect? Physical failures? And with no energy or opportunity to “have a ball”?

While the hours seem to drag on, the weeks seem to go by quickly. There are many hours when I sit in my recliner and let my mind go blank. I think about nothing, feel nothing. I am suspended in time and nothing matters. It is my ultimate respite.

I do perk up when I sit down to watch The View. I record it and and watch it while I eat lunch. The kind of women who animate The View are the kind of women who were a part of my close group of women friends when I lived in Albany (before I retired to take care of my mother who had severe dementia). Politically liberal, irreverent, savvy, and funny, we never ran out of things to talk about or experiences to share.

That is what I miss most. That connection to kindred spirits.

Over the years, I had tried, unsuccessfully to get one one of the local Senior Centers to start a women’s discussion group of some kind, in hopes of meeting new friends. It’s taken a while, but my local Center is planning to start what they are calling a “Gals Gossip Group,” and they are looking for someone to volunteer to facilitate it. I volunteered.

Of course, I probably won’t be able to drive for a while, and I might have to still use the walker, but the Center is only 5 minutes from the house, and my daughter said that she would drive me.

The other kind of discussion group I suggested (but was met with discomfort and rejection) what is called a “Death Cafe”.

At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. Our objective is ‘to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives’. A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session.

The linked video about gives you an idea about why folks want to talk about death.

So, because I am still alive and kicking (well not kicking with the broken ankle), I am waiting for the delivery of a pair of shoes that I hope will accommodate the ankle brace I’m going to have to wear for a while when I get rid of the uncomfortable boot.

Meanwhile, anyone have any idea how I can have a ball? Or is that all there is?

The Beginning of the End?

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My last post appeared here exactly one month and one day a year ago. The poem I wrote on that day pretty much describes what this past year has been like, filled with dental difficulties, lower back and joint pain, worsening my of hiatal hernia and GERD, and struggling with such existential issues as what the hell is the point of my being here at all at age 86.

Complicating my struggles even further is the fact that I fractured my right ankle badly four months ago, resulting in three separate surgeries and bouts in and out of rehab.

Currently, I am wearing one of those Star Wars-looking orthopedic boots on my right leg and a lift contraption on my right shoe to level out the length of my legs to enable walking. Yeah, right. It’s like trying to walk with a shoe box on each foot. So I have to use a walker to keep upright.

I have spent the past four months pretty much homebound with my foot elevated and my daughter taking on the exhausting role of caregiver — giving me my meals, my meds, and whatever access to the outside world that I need to have, including trips to the doctors and careful forays onto the deck in the backyard (weather permitting).

I can’t help looking at this as the beginning of the end, because from now on, it’s only going to be one thing after the other, as my assorted healers keep track of my chronic kidney disease, the damage to my digestive system, and the need for pain management of my back and knee.

In the past, I never thought about how long I might live, since my life was always filled with distractions from hard realities — fun hobbies, good friends, and variety of other interests. Now I often think about dying — when, how, why — and whether I’ll ever again have a compelling reason to keep the end at bay.

Right now, it’s like I barely exist on any kind of meaningful level.

Back in the old Blogger days, many of those folks made the point that blogging was a way to write themselves into existence.

So here I am, again, attempting to write myself back into existence, trying to find a point to it all, after all. Hoping to find a desire for desire.

The Exile of Age

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We take comfort where we can —
the cuddle of a soft chair that rocks;
rich chocolate, ripe berries
on tongues hungry for savor;
a healer’s hands on aches holding
lost assurances of potency and privilege.

Age sucks from our days the granted
pleasures of the unknowing young,
whose dreams of hope and promise
bring fervor and spice to their days.

Instead, our days task us with
the release of expectations,
tbe realities of dispiriting limits,
leaving our nights to wrestle with
unexpected regrets and
pointless Escher dreams.