When you are old

To use one of the many chiches, getting old is not for sissies. Sometime during the past year, I got old. Yesterday I fell in front of a local store. Fortunately, I did not suffer any major damage, just a few bruises and scrapes. My friend and a younger woman passerby helped me up.

Seems like overnight I went from someone with a relatively active life, friends, job, etc., to someone who finds herself sleeping to fill the long empty days. I am learning firsthand what life means for the elderly.

The first few months of retirement (I will call it that, though that decision attached itself to me rather than the other way around), I made friends on the net, organized my apartment, you know, all the chores put off because of a regular person life.

My disease got the upper hand a couple of times and I found myself learning about nursing shifts and vampires who want blood in the dark of night.

My friends continue much in the same vein as always while I drop off the living truck as it hits a bump.

Food, one of my great passions, no longer excites me. I can spend two or three minutes staring into the cabinets and refrigerator without finding anything I want to eat. The freezer door barely closes and the cabinets hold numerous choices. So I bought frozen dinners. Ugh! I barely ate half of a chicken and noodle dish before deciding that move failed.

Oh yeah, and all this spare time gives me the opportunity to relive my mistakes and replace them with what-ifs. Not good. Not good at all.

I am cold most of the time. The thermometer outside reads 76 degrees. Inside I am dragging around a lap blanket.

Sometime in the past couple of years, my internal clock decided 3 a.m. was the best hour for waking. 3 a.m. and I watch TV on mute and use my hot coffee cup to warm my cold hands. I insert naps around my Tyvaso treatments.

Dude, I do miss you especially.

Laters.