Month: November 2022

November 2022

By Richard Fleming

There is a funny aspect to old age I did not understand until I suddenly found myself old. Not funny ha-ha, but funny strange. Old age is not a uniform period of life. We enter the land of seniority at age 65, but after that point we travel through three very different worlds. For the sake of simplicity – and we seniors benefit from simplification of ideas – I will refer to these stages as Early Old Age, Middle Old Age, and Old Old Age.

For every individual, the time spent in each stage varies. Some move through at a quick pace. Others linger in one stage before traveling on.

Early Old Age is the exciting period of one’s senior years. It generally starts shortly after retirement, when we are freed from the necessity of going to work. If we are fortunate enough to have good health, a reasonable financial situation, and a supportive family and community, Early Old Age can be quite rewarding. Energy and enthusiasm remain high. We can explore new opportunities. Schedules loosen up. A typical day might open with a slow coffee or tea while consuming the news. Those of us lucky enough to be grandparents often spend gratifying time babysitting grandchildren. The day’s errands and chores can be completed at a leisurely pace. Or they can be put off until tomorrow, since tomorrow’s schedule looks pretty wide open. Travel options expand. Opportunities for volunteer work open up. When our adult children mention how grateful they are for an upcoming three-day weekend, we can nod empathetically while silently reveling in our seven-day weekends.

But time marches on. After dwelling for a while in Early Old Age – perhaps just a few years, but hopefully a decade or so – we move into the Middle Old Age period. I feel I’m on the cusp of entering this second phase myself. Hallmarks of this time of life are both physical and mental. Our bodies begin to more clearly assert their limitations. Aches and pains in various and sundry locations become more common than in Early Old Age. Energy levels drop. Motivation flags. Home projects are harder to complete. Especially those we put off when our schedules were wide open in Early Old Age. Folks traveling through the second stage of old age come to realize if they have a doctor’s appointment next week, they don’t have time to clean the garage today. Tomorrow looks pretty dicey too. As for babysitting duties, we still love seeing our grandchildren… but folks in Middle Old Age find caring for rambunctious young humans to be more, shall we say, draining than previously.

Mental acuity diminishes. We forget people’s names more easily. We frequently go into another room for some reason, but after getting there we forget why. To do this once in a day may not be significant. But twice in one day confirms the diagnosis of Middle Old Age. And financial concerns often increase during this phase of senior living.

In Early Old Age, denial can be useful, even healthy. But Middle Old Age brooks no compromise and no negotiation. Aging’s reality sinks in like a 40 pound weight in a quiet pond. Or – resorting again to idea simplification – the Golden Years inevitably transform into the Fool’s Gold Years.

And then. No matter that we eat right and exercise. No matter how nice we are. Old Old Age sooner or later comes to embrace us with its firm hug. In this final stage of our senior years, physical and mental limitations dominate. Our time spent in hospitals and doctors’ offices expands exponentially. Medication trays become an absolute necessity. Our ability to travel, volunteer, spend time with friends, all rapidly taper. Instead of babysitting grandchildren, people living in Old Old Age are often the ones requiring babysitters.

This stage of life can be peaceful or painful. It can be serene or it can be stressful. Commonly, it can be a combination of all. Daily activities become restricted. We spend more time contemplating our legacy and what we will miss out on as our children and grandchildren grow up and grow old. And we start to wistfully look back on our years in Middle Old Age. Back when we could live life much more fully.

It is this prospect of living in Old Old Age that I find truly daunting. I hope when I stand in the doorway to that final phase, I will be able to look forward, breathe calmly, and enter gracefully into that uncertain land with a sense of peace.

But I tell you frankly I’m just not ready. And let me add that I’m not sure how I’ll ever get ready.

Wait. Let me not get ahead of myself. (That is the worst thing one can do while growing old.) As I mentioned before, today I stand on the threshold of Middle Old Age. The land I will be entering presents its own set of challenges. I struggle to accept what these coming middle years will bring.

Thankfully the door which will one day usher me into Old Old Age remains a distant image, closed and locked. But it is not a mirage.

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November 2022

By Richard Fleming

I never imagined I would evolve into a crotchety old man. It was not on my bucket list and I’m fighting this archetype. The battle is joined, the outcome uncertain.

When I was young, I envisioned maturing into a suave, sophisticated, silver-haired older gentleman. This goal was wildly optimistic. Clumsy and awkward are better descriptors than suave and sophisticated. My hair is mousy gray, not silver. And I’m becoming a mite irritated with young people.

Apparently my struggle against becoming a cantankerous old guy continues.

In my own defense, my grouchiness is selective. There are many aspects of youth I admire and respect. Their energy. Their enthusiasm. Their curiosity. Their ability to lift heavy objects which would guarantee me a lumbar disc herniation if I attempted such a maneuver myself. I could not survive in the manner to which I am accustomed without the support and spirit of the young.

However. Young people uniformly manifest one of the most irritating traits known to humankind. In doing so, they defy longstanding precedent and the expertise of their elders. The persistence of this annoying habit may yet transform me into an irredeemably irritable senior citizen. If your year of birth precedes 1972, you know the negative attribute to which I refer. It is young people’s infuriating obsession with using their thumbs to type.

In case you are mystified by my irritation, let me explain. Please look down at your hands. Two of your ten digits are wider and thicker than the others. They have two joints. They are clumsy. They are called thumbs. Now observe the other eight digits. They have three joints. Their tips are thin. They are lithe and flexible. They are called fingers.

So far, so good. I’m trying to remain calm.

From time immemorial, there has been a division of labor between thumbs and fingers. Thumbs, intrinsically awkward, serve principally to stabilize the hand’s grip. Occasionally they engage with large objects, like the space bar on a keyboard. But they are too large to take on detailed activities independently. Fingers, intrinsically agile, are used for actions requiring dexterity and accuracy. There is a reason flautists avoid playing their instrument with their thumbs. The thumbs support the flute. They cannot create the music.

Another example. When reading War and Peace, we rely on our most discriminating finger to turn the 1,225 pages. The second finger is the most precise digit. Doctors refer to it as the index finger for good reason. The thumb can play an auxiliary role in turning pages, but the index finger takes the lead. Trust me on this. I passed anatomy in medical school in 1972. Human anatomy has changed little over the past half century.

OK. The structure and function of our ten digits has now been scientifically established.

Cutting to our current problem, young people decided some time ago to ignore the wisdom passed down from their elders and deploy their thumbs to the task of typing. And they do so on microscopic cell phone keyboards. Older and wiser folk opt to use their fingers – or more commonly their dominant hand’s index finger – to type slowly and carefully on cell phone keyboards. The results are wondrous. Few misspelled words. Punctuation is crisp and clear.

For young people, typing with the thumbs generates myriad problems. Misspelled words abound – “ur” instead of “your” or “you’re,” “n” instead of “and.” How does “to be honest” end up as “tbh”? And excuse me for asking, but what became of periods and commas in young people’s writing? Is capitalization a crime? My index finger never misses the period or comma keys. It never views the capitalization key as an inconvenience.

Truth be told, I long for the days of typewriter keyboards. Sixty words a minute was a snap. All ten digits knew their roles. Written words could be produced quickly, easily, and accurately.

But nostalgia holds a faint candle against the winds of change.

As I continue my journey, I pause to contemplate two diverging paths ahead. To pick one route means sticking with the world we older folks created. To take the other requires accepting that young people are creating the future.

Taking the first path will feel more comfortable, initially. But I fear I will become the grumpy old man I’m trying to avoid. If I choose the second path, I may feel awkward. But I will come to accept that young people are the ones constructing our new world. They are creating many new approaches to living and doing their best to solve the myriad problems we older folks created. If I am lucky, I may get to live in this new world for a while, as a calm older man. And I can try to help clean up some of the messes made by us older folks.

I hesitate a moment more. Which path will it be? The sun is coursing westwards and I must make my choice. Slowly at first, I place one foot in front of the other. My pace picks up as I decide to acknowledge the oncoming generation. It is time.

And this choice apparently requires I start typing with my thumbs.

tbh im jus sayin u no

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