Young and Old

Most of the time, I’m living the quiet, relaxed empty nester senior citizen life with David. In the weeks leading up to summer, our days included at least one of these categories: doctors’ appointments; checking up on Medicare claims; discussing our new aches and pains; planning meals in accordance with voiding needs; discount shopping on Senior Day at the local supermarket; and so on.

Don’t get crazy now; this isn’t all we do. We each have things we enjoy together and apart and work hard to keep our days fun, productive and full.  

Starting in June with a 6-week visit with our Morocco family – including our 2 youngest grandchildren, ages 5 and 2 – I became keenly aware of the dichotomy of life as a senior when we are on our own vs. with the sustained presence of little ones.

During our time together, our familar home environment changed as we became immersed in the kind of children’s world that I haven’t experienced since my kids were toddlers. While it is true that there have been other long stays and we see our three local grandchildren often, this last visit impacted me on a different level: it left me more energized than I have in a long time.

There are 2 events in particular that may have led to this feeling. One weekend, we went to an amusement park – all the kids and grandkids, 14 in all – and after initially saying “No, I’ll pass” on a roller coaster that I hadn't been on in 40 years, I quickly changed my stance when I saw that our 5-year-old needed someone to ride with or she wouldn’t have been able to go. How could I refuse? I pulled myself together, didn’t overthink, and off we went. When I was afraid of how high we were, I looked at her smiling and I smiled, too, for the rest of the day….week…month.

Some time later, a handful of us went to a very large indoor playground and again one of our 5-year-olds wanted to climb to the top. This was the LAST thing I wanted to do, but her mom was busy with her 2-year-old sister, so I had to step up. She caught on pretty quickly that her MomMom is a wuss, but she ignored it and started to climb, knowing I was behind her. She cheered me on and encouraged me to go higher until she said she was ready to get down. I asked, “You sure?” as I breathed a sigh of relief. I was so proud of myself. 

What I realized during the visit was that there was no space free during the day – or night – to obsess about ourselves and to identify as old folks the way I know we do, when we are alone.  It was an exhilarating reset.

Just hours after they left, and we went back to looking at each other and saying Now What?!?!?, I could feel us sliding back into our patterns as we picked up where we left off.

At breakfast the next morning, the quiet echoed so loud without the voices of the kiddies talking and squealing and laughing. I was busy scrambling eggs when I noticed that David was focused on my pajama bottoms. He looked confused, then entertained, with a ghoulish grin on his face. I glanced down at my PJs expecting but fearful of some kind of nasty stain but saw nothing. I twisted around to see the back of them and there it was…a tail of toilet paper.

I had an immediate flashback of a similar scenario with my mom over a decade ago, but she was…96!  And here I am, 30 years younger, wondering what went wrong with me in the bathroom...and is this the new normal?!? It took me a couple of days to rebound.

All this to say that I realize I'm going to have senior moments from now until the day I’m no longer here. That’s the reality.

But – also a reality – I still have it in me to feel young and do youthful things!