September Golden Shovel #14

My aging body is new to me. How like prisons

Are the body templates women must match, built

On fantasies of a male hive mind, cultivated by

Women who slip under the door, themselves matched to the

Template and spending money for makeup, clothes, procedures, needs

Not self-created. What template forces my aging body, that

Material container, to fit an imaginary dream? Whose rule

Says sagging, wrinkles, unsteadiness, randomness is not us.

 

source: Prisons Built by the Needs That Rule Us

SOLSC 27: Envious Relief? or Relieved Envy?

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            My husband died about 15 months ago. When I see couples around my age or older on the street, I feel pangs of envy; why do they still have each other and I don’t have Jack?

            But when I see older couples and the man is disabled, using a cane or walker, or in a wheelchair, my feelings are more mixed. There is still envy, but also relief. Jack had become disabled enough before he was hospitalized that we both had a sense of what that meant. And it was very difficult. Were either of us ready for, or able to deal with, those difficulties? Jack definitely was not, and he said so.

            Today, as I was leaving my bank’s ATM center, a couple who might have been Jack and me in a possible future were entering. She was pushing him in a wheelchair. He was wrapped up in blankets, head covered with a beret. She was short, maybe about five foot two; he did not seem so short. Someone was holding the door for her. I heard him speaking to her, so it sounded like he was coherent.

            How long had she been caring for him? How did they manage personal aspects like getting him into and out of the wheelchair? Surely she needed home health aides to help with his care; I know how expensive that can be. Maybe he lived at the nursing home a block away, and they were just on an outing. But that too is very expensive. And either scenario is emotionally wearing for both caregiver and care receiver.

            What was I feeling? Envy? Relief? Both? The impossible?

SOLSC Day 14: Time Passing

We’ve been living in our current apartment building for 45 years. (And is it okay to continue to say “we,” even in the present tense, for describing something that included Jack in the past?) One of the building’s handymen, Luis, has been living in the basement apartment with his family for almost as long as we have lived here. And he is retiring at the end of the month.

            He’s 80, so it’s way past time for him to stop doing the kind of work that handymen do, polishing the lobby floor, sweeping up in the basement, shoveling snow or steering the snowblower, collecting trash from the 15 floors and bundling it out to the sidewalk. I’m sure he’s done way more work that I never see.

            Luis’s cousin Pedro was one of our doormen for many years, and he retired a couple of years ago, moving to Florida. There was a building party for him, and there will be one for Luis.

            Having the people who’ve worked for you for many years retire and move away is one

more mark of passing time. When Jack and I moved into this building, there was a middle-aged couple on our elevator. We never knew their name (New York is like that; and we live on the second floor so didn’t usually take the elevator), but we smiled and nodded when we saw them. Then he died, and then she ... moved away? died?

            Now I feel like I’ve moved into that slot for newcomers in the building. They saw the notice about Jack’s memorial in the lobby, perhaps wondered who he was, may even have seen him going out with his walker to walk around the block. But they didn’t know his name, and they won’t know mine when I disappear. (Unless I make an effort.)

Life After Three Score and Ten

While putting together the photoboard for the memorial tomorrow, I went to my husband’s computer to find out when the photo that’s his Facebook pic was taken. There I was reminded of a thread he started on his page titled “Life after three score and ten.” Here are some of his posts:

            Candid lady of my acquaintance says: "You know you are getting old when all the guys you committed adultery with have died."

            I learn of the death of an old girl friend. I can't remember what she looked like and this depresses me. Sonia is reassuring: "I wouldn't let it bother you. Her feelings aren't hurt."

           Neighbor woman I flirted with in the long ago gives me the same kind of winks and leers as in the past. Are we still flirting? I guess, if we think we are.

            You notice that when you talk to your lover of many decades, you are more likely to discuss what goes on in the bathroom than what happens in the bedroom.

            If you aren't mourning your friends, they are mourning you. An easy choice, but....

 

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I’m participating in the 9th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day three of the thirty-one-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

Countdown...

In six weeks, I will leave the full-time workforce and no longer have to go to an office. Right this minute, that feels really good. But there are so many steps that still need to taken:
1. Sign up for Medicare Part B: two forms that need to be filled out
2. Sign up for a medigap policy and Part D  prescription coverage by December 7
3. Make sure my replacement at work will really work out (the first choice didn't at all)
4. Get used to using my to-do list again (I lost track of it the past few years)

There's more, but isn't this enough?

Retirement, no, semiretirement

I'm moving into semiretirement in January, which is a major change for me. Working at home, setting up my own schedule for my own work and for the work for which I will be paid, not seeing other people (except my partner) unless I make the effort to see them -- all this will be new and diff-erent (or should I have written "diff-icult?).  So I will use this space to prepare and work through How to Go About It.

Twelve years ago Carl Klaus, founder of the nonfiction writing program at the University of Iowa, wrote a whole book on preparing for his impending retirement, Taking Retirement. Nine years ago Nan Bauer Maglin co-edited a volume of women writing on retirement, Women Confronting Retirement: A Nontraditional Guide. I doubt this will become a book. But I do invite anyone out there with thoughts, suggestions, questions, pitfalls to chime in. Let's have a conversation about this stage of life without the gung-ho, false cheeriness, and Hallmark card sentiments or the moan and groan of how bad things are now. However, hearty whining accompanied by action prompts are welcome: what can we actually DO about what's bothering us, whether it's the deterioration of our bodies or the deterioration of the body politic.

So, let's go...