Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.– Franz Kafka
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. George Bernard Shaw
I turned Eighty-Five in June of 2025 CE, and it was my roughest birthday yet. For years, I’ve thought of myself as a much younger person than my actual age. If I had a physical problem – and I’ve had a lot of physical problems – I sort of thought about it as something that could be fixed, a repair like a leaking radiator on a car. Fix the leak and zoom away. Even then, when I really think about it, I knew I was getting old, but not really…old.
A couple of months before my birthday, I fell on a wet flight of stairs, breaking a little bone in my hand, from which my hand is still numb. At about the same time as my birthday, I had my first of two cancer surgeries, two cataract surgeries, which made it difficult to read, and a major problem with my jaw that is probably arthritis related. All this over a background of arthritis that is getting worse. It is not the first time that I’ve felt old, but the first time I’ve felt chronically old. I feel like I’ve become obsessed with ageing and its associated degradation of my body and mind.
To add to that, I lost, left really, my phone in a cab in Paris, and it is now tied up in French Customs. I don’t consider myself a big phone user, but I really miss it. Then our house phone battery failed, so I felt completely isolated. I thought I did, that is, until my computer’s hard drive started freezing and I lost my email connection.
I probably will not find out if I’m cancer-free for a while, and even if I am now cancer-free, I will have six weeks of chemotherapy to be sure. On the plus side, I passed my driver’s vision test, and I can now read the New Yorker’s cartoons without glasses. We have a new house phone with the same number but no saved numbers of other people. I now have a new 2-TWO-terabyte hard drive, which is pitched as being faster and more reliable than my old drive.
Meanwhile, back in Paris, we went to a David Hockney show in a museum designed by Frank Gehry.
I hear you dear friend. I just spent 4 days in the hospital as the newest member of the afib club. It’s scary and added to my heart failures ( or caused by or vice-versa; not a great combo. Love you.
Oh, Karen! I’m so sorry, 4 days in the hospital is not fun. What are they/you going to do?
Ah, aging. Hard not to be a bit obsessed. You seemed young and remarkably fit un France. How did you like the David Hockney show?
Susan, I feel young and remarkably fit to myself, too. Except, I’m starting to realize I’m not.
For me it hit around when I turned 80 and fell off the porch at Wall…haven’t been the same since. But then things are never quite the same I guess…the best one can do is whatever one can; your tumble down the steps, though, that was a nasty one.
Yeah, the stairs did me in. The good news is that we are getting old. My dad stopped getting old when he was 60. That’s way too soon.