Demands of Age

Aging has taken on a whole new meaning for me. Or maybe it’s the same meaning, just written in bolder font and posted closer to my face so I can actually read it.

I’d like to tell you I know exactly who reads this column, but I don’t. I assume it’s about sixty percent women, forty percent men, and ninety percent people over sixty who can spot an honest story a mile away, as long as the lighting is good and they’re wearing the right glasses.

Anyone under fifty may not understand any of this because Mother Nature hasn’t sent them the memo yet. Trust me, she delivers, late, but with no return address.

At sixty, I barely noticed a shift. I walked fine, thought clearly, and had energy to spare. By seventy, my naps were no longer optional, they became appointments. Reading turned into the opening ceremony for falling asleep, so I started closing the book before it smacked me in the face.

But eighty… Eighty arrived like a surprise houseguest who rearranges your furniture and eats all your snacks.

People watching me navigate the cobblestones in San Miguel were certain I’d been drinking before lunch. I weave between curbs and buildings like a woman searching for lost marbles, or auditioning for a role in Drunk Grandma Takes a Stroll.

My hearing aids are also staging a quiet rebellion. They work beautifully until someone next to me speaks, at which point they clock out and go on an extended coffee break. Tuning people out has never been easier, or more justified.

My peripheral vision? It’s now partly blocked by eyelids that have decided gravity deserves a medal. I assume they’ll reach my chin by ninety.

Answering a simple question takes time, mostly because the word I’m hunting for fell into a mental crack sometime around 1962. I know it’s in there; it’s just hiding with my ambition and half the names of people I went to school with.

Bathroom visits in the middle of the night have doubled, tripled, or possibly multiplied in ways science has not yet documented. My body now runs on a schedule only the moon understands.

And the hair situation, losing it here, sprouting it there, feels like Mother Nature reorganizing my follicles for her amusement. Some mornings I don’t know whether to reach for scissors, tweezers, or a small weed-whacker.

Still, I can’t help but laugh. Aging demands adjustments, but it hands out punch lines just as fast.

Some say the whole arc of life sends us right back to infancy. Live long enough, and your children may end up changing you, feeding you, and showing you off to the neighbors.

If that’s true, at least this time I get to pick the outfit.

Little 

Voice