WHAT YOU NEED TO BE TO GROW OLD GRACEFULLY

Most people are taken in by anyone claiming the fountain of youth exists in their product...instant non-surgical face lift, lengthen your penis, augment your breasts with implants or lifts, get rid of what you don't want on your body, take fat off with liposuction, and on and on the list goes. However, telling people how to grow old satisfied and happy doesn't sell...no one seems to want to grow old, as inevitable as that is for us all.

Just as the infant has to learn there is a time to give up the breast and replace it with a bottle, then give that up for a glass or cup, seniors need to learn that they, too, have to learn that you never stop growing beyond what might have been comfortable and possible earlier in life. While the child outgrows many needs, observing a child being toilet trained makes it clear that it is very difficult to give up even that part of yourself they will later learn not to want to claim as it gets flushed 'to feed the fishies'.

Just as the boys in Peter Pan refused to grow up, seniors refuse to accept the inevitable growing old. Elders need to understand that no matter what they do to themselves, they will never be or look young again. Witness more recent pictures of Michael Jackson, Joan Rivers, Zsa Zsa Gabor, or many others who may no longer have wrinkles, but they don't look young, either. It is not difficult to understand why men on TV want to wear toupees but off TV they are more difficult to maintain as a real enhancement. Vanity plays a large part in the resistance to growing old gracefully. If your identity was wrapped up in your appearance, sadly for you, it may be a greater demand for accepting change.

To grow old gracefully is simple. Accept what was as in the past and accept the limitations of the present whether they are physical, financial, or mental. The older driver whose vision is impaired but insists on driving is as dangerous as the drunk on the road. Denial does not belong during an assessment of current abilities. Just because you used to be able to do something doesn't mean you can or should do it today. If you need proof of that, play those electronic hand-held games with a child under 12 years of age. Reaction time is important to driving; reacting in an unanticipated situation; and whether your brain can quickly process information. It determines whether you can even follow the TV, since we are fed at a very rapid rate with no pauses, to get as much info to us as is possible, even if people can't read fast enough to follow the running tape feed on the bottom of the screen while listening to the newscaster speaking a totally different subject.

Accept the inevitable. Use whatever senses you have working. Keep modifying your life style to fit your current abilities. Sixty five years ago there was a postcard that read, "Don't be the old maid who waited so long for her ship to come in that her pier collapsed." Grab life where you can but don't try the impossible. Give up regrets, it takes wasted energy, as does plotting revenge. There are positives in most things....look for them.

THINGS THAT CANNOT BE CHANGED

Today, the snow storm that hit Texas finally reached us with rain. When your roof has leaked and you haven't been able to get a roofer to come take a look at it, the falling barometer can look pretty ominous. The problem escapes me. The first time it leaked water into my house recently, I discovered that it when I heard dripping from the chandelier a few feet away from me in an adjoining room. Since there is a room above the chandelier, I checked upstairs, and sure enough the floor had received lots of water as the rain ran along the metal track on a closet and dripped down.

After putting a couple of waste baskets under the drips, it eventually stopped. Being a procrastinator I never took the two waste baskets away. A few days ago when it was very windy and raining, I heard the same ominous drip from the same chandelier. Upstairs, the two waste baskets were still there and one was half full of water--- but the floor was dry. Several days passed as i tried to think of someone I might call. By the time I could locate someone to figure out the problem, it has begun to rain again. So far I hear no tell-tale dripping. Does that suggest that it happens only when it is windy? I can only hope that it might be an overflowing gutter (not having cleaned them in more than seven years) but I don't have a ladder tall enough to reach to check. I am looking for someone who will install those gutter guards that don't allow leaves to get in and rot and clog the drain pipes and backup water under the eaves and all those terrible things that Nature forces on us.

It is impossible to make a house free of problems. There is no way to anticipate that will change in my lifetime. Just as with our bodies, we can do some preventative maintenance but wind and weather, fire and accidents, wear and tear, careless usage, all present the necessity for constant vigilance towards the care and feeding of the house.

Now I have to sit and be patient until I get called back on the requests I have made to have the gutters and roof checked and the leaking stopped. When that problem gets solved I will wait for the next one to appear. And so it will go until I cease to exist because I know that I cannot change the fact that I will cease to exist long before a trouble and maintenance free house is invented.