WHAT’S IT LIKE GROWING OLD, PART 3of 3

WHAT’S IT LIKE GROWING OLD, PART 3of 3

THINGS I DISLIKE, STOP THAT OLD MAN

I don’t like to be called ‘young man’ when it’s so obvious I’m not a young man. Do people really think it’s complimentary to address an elderly person as ‘young man’ or ‘young lady’? Now, if they were to say ‘you look like a much younger man,’ I’d eat that up. Maybe my distaste for this term stems from me not liking to be fooled or deceived, even if I am an old fool.

 Last week I had my yearly physical. The doctor and I were talking about my age and how physically fit I was. “I see you are seventy-one years young,” he said.

A funny feeling fell over me. I felt slighted. I knew he meant to compliment me, but, for some reason this dislikeable, distasteful, feeling seeped over me. I wanted to scream at him, that’s not me, buster. I sat there glassy eyed for a moment before I smiled and felt my face flush.  I thought you only said that to people in their nineties or someone over a hundred when their age starts over at one again. I want to live that long, but I don’t want to be there yet.

THE FORGETFULNESS SYNDROME,  I CAN’T BELIEVE I DID THAT

I get up and start to the kitchen or some other room to get or do something. Before I get there, I wonder what it was I was going to do. An hour later and out of the blue, it slaps me upside the head. This syndrome happens far too frequently of late.

A thought pops into my head. I’ll write it down after I finish this sentence, I tell myself. It bleeps out and I sit here speculating what it might have been. A page or so later it may come back, or maybe on rewrite it will pop back into my noggin. That’s what I wanted to say before. Quick, get it down before it’s gone again, as I hit the replay button over and over.

I reach for something. What was it I wanted? I remember it when I can’t get to sleep that night. I turn to tell my wife something and just that quick it’s gone. Then she’s gone. I may or may not think of it again.

I set a routine for just about everything I do. Every morning when I make my artificial coffee drink sweetened with artificial sweetener, and my natural drink of apple cider vinegar  sweetened with molasses and diluted with warm water, I do everything in a specific order. If I don’t pay particular attention to what I’m doing, I end up putting my artificial coffee creamer into my natural drink, or the Vinegar in my coffee. Being an ultra conservative type, I never throw them away, I drink them as I made them. They taste terrible, but then they all end up the same place mixed together anyway.

Did I mention I’m dyslexic? I found this out when I was in my mid sixties; about the same time I noticed my mental lapses. Dyslexia is attributed to a malfunction or developmental quirk of the brain. My dyslexia seems to be improving as my memory deteriorates ; I think. What was I talking about?