AGING GRACEFULLY
This morning as I applied my Neutrogena SPF 20 face lotion, my Olay Regenerist eye cream, my Kiss My Face hand lotion to all other parts, it occurred to me – my body is drying out. You wouldn’t know it to look at me, necessarily, but one touch is worth a thousand pictures.
Of course, I wouldn’t know what you would see, because my eyes have been going for about 15 years now. I have glasses and contacts. I tend to wear the contacts more, strictly for reasons of vanity. I think I look better that way. (Again, how can I trust what I see, given the super-strength prescription that is necessary to keep me from tripping over my own feet)?
And speaking of tripping over one’s own feet – Last week I was getting something out of the refrigerator that was on the bottom shelf. When I straightened up again, I hit my head on the handle of the freezer. I wouldn’t feel so bad about that, except that it happened again two days ago.
My husband, who was in the office at the time, yelled something across the house to me. I think it must have been, “Are you okay”? I think. A lot of the time I find I have to guess what someone is saying. Sometimes I don’t bother to guess. I just nod my head and hope for the best. I don’t want to think that my hearing is going, too. After all, I am a songwriter and part-time musician.
Of course, there are the minor aches and pains (see “Borching”). There are the twinges, the occasional sudden sensation of a needle going through the bottom of your foot, the stiffness in the nether regions – all of these are easily recognizable to most of us of a certain age.
But what really gets me is not being able to remember. Names are particularly vexing. Last week we were out to dinner with friends. One of the most pleasing dinner conversations is the kind where each couple takes turns offering the names of movies they have seen and enjoyed. Well, this couple kept rattling off the names, plots and stars of obscure foreign films going back ten or twenty years. As they mentioned each movie, it would stimulate a memory for me. (That’s how the game is supposed to work). But when I went to retrieve the title of the piece, my mind went blank. I found myself saying to my husband, “Oh, you know the one – The one that’s about the little orphaned boy who is befriended by the gruff man? Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue. We rented it from Netflix about a month ago. It took place in one of those Eastern European countries? I forget which one. And the man had a girlfriend? I think she was a brunette? It was so sweet”! And my husband looks at me with absolutely no clue whatsoever. (We’re in this thing together). I feel as if I hallucinated the whole thing.
Meanwhile, our friends are rattling off more movies, more plotlines, more director names, more actors’ names, more characters’ names, and finally, I just decide to make the best of a bad situation. I take out a little pencil and paper and start writing down their recommendations. I want to shout out, “We know movies, too! Really great movies! Esoteric movies! We’re not as boring as we seem!” But the damage is done. It’s been a “shut-out” game. Score: 2000 for their team, 0 for ours. (Sigh).
So when people talk about aging gracefully, I wonder what the heck they’re talking about. Do they mean just accepting the inevitable? Do they mean putting off the inevitable by having facelifts every five years? Do they mean having genes that allow them to age more slowly than everyone else? Do they mean being Katherine Hepburn? (She’s the only one who ever struck me as aging gracefully, but after all; there was only one of her).
Maybe “Aging Gracefully” is one of those vague expressions that refers to an ideal that’s not really attainable. If we’re lucky, we age. Period. And as my father would say, “When you consider the alternative. . .”
© 2004, Robin Munson