Getting Old Gracefully - NOT

Ten years ago, I had all my favorite recipes laminated.  I thought it was so clever.  I could use my recipes, wipe them clean, and pass them onto my daughter so that she could, in turn, use them, wipe them clean, all the while remembering me fondly.  Now ten years later, I realize that she won't even need them or want them.  The internet gives her access to all the recipes she wants in an immediate instant.  The internet has turned her into a gourmet chef so that my simple, comfort foods are so old fashioned and tasteless by comparison.  So much for trying to feed nostalgia.

In the same vein, my husband, who was a collector in his heyday, stores all the stuff he thinks may still hold some value up in our attic.  It is a crawl space that you access from the old fashioned pull down stairs.  It is hot and dark up  there.  It is my husband's domain so it is messy and disorganized.   In otherwords, it is total chaos.  It occured to me that the kids, who are nearing middle age, with young children of their own, will curse us the day they have to sort through all our stuff.  A lifetime of collecting and there will be no time to tell stories, to hold onto memories, to linger.  We are all caught up in the Cat's Cradle, and the last thing our grown childrn will want to do is to sift, and sort, and linger.  They will have to return to work ASAP.

Every item in our house has its own story.  Some are antiques, bought at auctions.  Some are garage sale finds.  Some are just plain garage sale chic.  Each item was bought with love and attention was paid to every detail.  "Who will want our crap?"  I ask my husband.  I look at the presents he has bought me over the years.  They have special meaning to me.  I remember the classics I read in English Lit classes.  Women would hold their mother's jewelry tenderly in their hands and remember.  Who has time to remember now?  At this rate, even my house will suffer from Alzhiemer's even before I do!

I have decluttered so many times, only to wonder how there is still so much stuff.  Why do I have all this stuff?  Who needs all this stuff?  Who will want all this stuff?  Why is stuff so very important? 

Getting Old Gracefully - NOT

Please tell me all about your different doctor appointments that you squeeze in between the other stuff going on in your lives.
But I promised you random thoughts and so here are some more:

Ten years ago, my daughter moved out to CA.  I thought she would transplant herself there.  So, I had all my favorite recipes laminated so that she would be able to use them and not worry about getting them dirty.  Of course, my hidden agenda, was that she would remember me with love one day.  Now I realize, she won''t want them.  The internet gives her access to any recipe in an instant.  And she has outgrown me as a chef.  So much for feeding into nostagia...
Oh, by the way, this great recession was good to me in one way.  There are no jobs in CA., and my daughter and husband moved back close to home.  So even though home is where the heart is, I am glad that their heart is not 3,000 miles away.  I kept telling my daughter that we were not rich enough to be bicoastal!
Tell me your adult children stories.  Do your 30 somethings have jobs?  Can they afford a home?

Getting Old Gracefully - NOT

Not too long ago, my husband insulated the attic and the basement completely by himself.  He leveled the living room floor.  I painted the walls.  Now I actually WANT to buy our handyman lunch.  We buy him whatever he wants to eat so that he will come to us first every time we call.  Forget my job. Forget my husband.  Forget my family.  Forget my house. Forget my yard.  Forget my community.  First there is the regular doctor for when I get an upper respiratory infection.  Then there are the regular, maintenance appointments to the cardiologist.  Then, there is the podiatrist, the chiropractor, and physical therapy appointments.  There is the gynocologist, the radiologist.  There are mammograms, sonograms, and bone density scans.  There is the dentist.  There are the neurologist appointments.  There is the optometrist and the opthamologist.  And those are just MY doctor appointments.  Then of course, there is the hairdresser - the colorist and the stylist.  I AM a full time job.   So why can't I take myself off as a deduction?  I feel that it is safe to say, that the way it is going, I am a legitimate liability.  OOPS!!!!! So, that is why medicare is a BIG problem.  WE USED TO BE FROM THE SIXTIES BUT NOW WE ARE IN OUR SIXTIES!!!!
Just the other day (and if you google it up, you can still find this article) I read:  Coud Being Healthy Actually Make Your Retirement Worse? on CBS - Money Watch and I quote:  "If you are healthy, you can expect to live longer.  And this means you'll have more years during which you'll have to pay for medical expenses, and eventually you'll die of something, incurring medical expenses in the process..." Does anyone else hear JFK's strong Boston-accented voice calling to our best selves resonanting in your soul:  "Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country?"  Say what?!!!! EXACTLY WHAT does this country want us to do NOW?

Getting Old Gracefully - NOT

No one ever told me that pubic hair turns white, too.  It came as a shock the first time.  Then it dawned on me and made perfect sense.  But luckily, my husband cannot see and that is why I think Nature is laughing.  Speaking about hair... My hair - the one that counts - the one one top of my head is thinning out.  My husband's hair is more than thinning out.  There's the receding hairline coupled with the bald spot.  Yet, at the same time that all this going on, I have wild hairs growing in all kind of places on my face.  But my husband would have to first find his reading glasses, put them on, turn on all the overhead lights, and he would have to remember what he was looking at.  What are the chances?

Getting Old Gracefully - NOT

I ask myself (and all of you):  Is getting old gracefully even remotely possible?  I don't have any answers, only random thoughts because at 60, all I have is random thoughts.

Well, I for one hope you can read this font size.  Me, I am typing it with my + 2.25 reading glasses perched on my nose.  I always pick the most elaborate ones possible, the most colorful, the most flamboyant, the ones with the most rhinestones, because hell, if I am 60, I might as well flaunt it!!!!

What do you think of reading glasses?  How many pairs do you own?  How many places do you hide them around your house?  Do you have a pair in each of your bathrooms?  Do you wear them around your neck?  Do you have those glasses necklaces?  And how many pairs do you own?  Do they match what you are wearing right now?  Have you ever strangled yourself on them?

Do any of you wear glasses for distance as well?  I have two pair of progressives (but I forgot what
they were called and had to check with the optometrist.  My mind kept calling them "perspectives."  The receptionist at the optometrist's could not remember either.  She had to ask the assistant optometrist).    However, they don't work as well for me as two different pairs for me.  So, if you see a 60 year old with two pairs of glasses on her head, both of them colorful and fully decorated, please stop and say: "Hi!"