I used to think I would not like getting old because of the physical changes. More wrinkles around the eyes, less hair around the crown of my head, and more body parts than I care to count sagging in defeat to that eternal opponent, gravity. It turns out, I do not mind those changes as much as I thought I would. I have avoided Botox, found a hairdresser who can hide thinning spots, and willingly parted with those clothes that no longer mask gravity’s pull.
Keith Richards once quipped, “Getting old is fascinating. The older you get, the older you want to get.” Well, Keith, I do not know if being unable to read a menu under anything less than shopping centre lighting qualifies, but I suppose one aspect of aging is fascinating. How busy I am.
Do I mean the type of busyness depicted on those old Freedom 55 brochures? The palm-tree-sandy-beach-and-yellow-golf-shirt variety of busy? Oh no. I have no time for those idle pursuits. In my older years, I am a different type of busy. A type of busy the London Life Insurance Company kept under wraps while peddling their wares.
“Could you do this once a day?”
My dental hygienist peered at me over the three instruments and two fingers she had managed to squeeze into my right cheek. She was shouting over the whir of the suction wand, and I was answering with, “Arrrgggwwwlll” and spraying her with spittle. She had just asked if I could add a lukewarm saltwater mouth rinse to my daily brushing and flossing routine. Time, she shouted, was taking its toll on my gums and a saltwater rinse would keep them in good health. Desperate to preserve the thread of oxygen reaching my nose, I quickly wobbled my head and gargled a yes.
Finished, she raised my chair and wiped my chin. Just as I thought I was good to go, she showed me a small, round brush with plastic cover.
“Proxy brush!” she explained, handing me a mirror and directing me to watch her technique of pushing the little brush into the spaces between my teeth and wiggling it around.
“Twice a day, okay? Get all the plaque out. You have more plaque.”
I nodded, thinking, Got it. Saltwater rinse. Two minutes with the proxy brush. No problem.
“I want you doing this twice a day,” my dentist announced when he took over from the hygienist over a few minutes later. He poked a hard, toothpick-like tool into the same gaps between my teeth. “Push down on the gum, like this, and wiggle.” He smiled as he completed his three-minute demonstration. “Keeps the bone under the gum healthy, and it will only take a few minutes.”
See? Busy. And this was on top of the eye care routine assigned to me by my optometrist the day before.
“Forty seconds in the microwave and then rest it on your eyes for fifteen minutes twice a day,” my optometrist held an eye mask in one hand, the thing to be microwaved, and a short fat spray bottle in the other. Before I could answer about the eye mask, he sprayed my eyes with the bottle.
“Twice per day,” he waved the bottle. “For the bacteria on your eyelids.”
Bacteria on my eyelids?! I wanted to exclaim but before I could, he asked if I use saline drops. He received my negative reply with something that looked like dismay and promptly told me to use drops a couple of times per day.
“Just to keep your eyes in good condition and healthy.” He paused, noting I was not smiling with him, and then offered, “The eye mask feels great. You can have a little nap!”
Who has time for a nap, doc? I am busy!
There is the ten-minute physiotherapy routine of hand and finger exercises prescribed to keep my arthritis at bay (twice per day), the arthritis cream to be applied to my hands and feet (twice per day), the vitamins, carefully batched and timed for effectiveness (three times per day), the neck and shoulder stretches to counteract the effects of sitting at a computer and writing (“several” times per day), the leg raises, squats, and hamstring stretches for runner’s knee (twice per day), and the thyroid replacement pill to keep all of this alive (once per day). For kicks I added a miracle drug my sister swore would start new hair growth around the crown of my head.
“Two a day,” she said into the phone, slowly to show how serious she was. “Trust me. It works.”
Of course, I must do all this around my prayer schedule which, if I follow a good Catholic regimen of soul healing and redemption involves three Our Fathers (three minutes each), one Daily Rosary (twenty-one minutes), three Liturgy of the Hours (nine minutes each) and, for good measure, one Litany of Humility (seven minutes).
“Time to stop praying for humility,” I grumbled one afternoon while trying to walk from a client office to the train station. I had convinced myself that my feet were not that arthritic, and I could survive one day in my pointy-toe high-heeled shoes. Now with the workday at an end, I was standing on the concrete, feeling my right foot go numb, and wondering how long it would take to hobble the remaining two blocks once the walk sign signalled that I could start moving again (answer: longer than would allow me to catch my train).
That night, after cleaning my teeth, massaging my gums, and praying to my God, I slipped on my carpal-tunnel wrist guards, jammed foam plugs into my ears, and balanced my CPAP mask and hose on my forehead so I could turn to Brock and wish him a good night. It suddenly struck me that he is not as busy as I. Sure, he takes medication twice a day, but the man can get out of bed and walk normally without applying arthritis cream to his feet twice a day. I contemplated the fact that I had spent twenty years busily pursuing and worshipping the god of fitness and Brock had not. Brock can walk in the morning. I am Frankenstein’s monster.
What might be most fascinating about aging is that the ways to age well are as varied as the people who age. The man who found aging fascinating, Keith Richards, survived drugs, drinking, heavy smoking, no exercise, and eating all the wrong foods. He is still alive and, according to himself, thriving. Now, I have not seen the man walk lately, but I did read that he fell out of a tree when he was older than I am now and my first thought was, “Wow. He can climb a tree?”
Lately, I have realized the truth of my increasing “busyness”. The reasons I am busy are the reasons I am slowing down. And this is a good thing. It was while hiking with Brock that this truth hit home.
We had parked the car and were making our way down a steep dirt trail that led past a waterfall and along a rushing creek. The fall day was perfect. The leaves had just started to turn, the air was cool, and the sun glittered through the trees. My right foot complained as my boot pinched on newly swollen joints, so I took the trail slowly.
After a few minutes, we stopped briefly to enjoy the sound of the water gushing over the rocks, and I realized something. Not once had I said to him, “Let’s pick up the pace!” Or called, “Can we go faster?” Not once had I worried about making a certain distance in a certain amount of time. Not once had I thought that we should be hiking two, three or four hours for it to count as exercise. I had hiked next to him, chatted away, watched the rocks and tree roots, and taken care with my steps. After half an hour, I winced at a sharper pinch on the outside of my boot and asked him if he was okay with turning back.
Brock, the man who has followed me on a hiking trail for four hours because it made me happy, smiled and said, as he usually does when I ask if he wants to do something, “Sure.”
Okay, I thought, maybe the Litany of Humility can stay in the program.
Even the humility that comes from realizing your hair is thinning, your gums are receding, your joints are swelling, and your eyes are drying out in their sockets. It is okay to be knocked off the perch of fast-moving pride and slow down a little.
Okay, God in heaven, bring it on. Let me grow old and accept my twice-a-day, three-times-a-day, and fifteen-minutes-a-day busyness that really means I will not move as fast as I used to. Maybe I can make one request. Teach me to savour the things I will slow down for and, most of all, to always find them fascinating.
The author ignoring her arthritis and hiding her thinning spots while hiking with Brock.
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