From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

Have you noticed a crease over your left eyebrow, crepey arm flesh, neck flab and more than a few gray hairs? Personally, my hair has turned white! 

No longer do I frequent the drug store searching for the perfect color, with red highlights, to color my hair. Yes, I save money and time by simply going natural, but my spirits plummet when I sit next to a much younger looking gal with dyed locks…she looks sooooo much younger!

Maybe time and money saved is not worth the feeling that my youth is gone. Life is a downhill battle now to keep fit and eat right.

I’ve become a walking drug store with bottles of pills, moisturizing creams and doctor appointments. 

Why does this surprise me? I notice my friends at reunions, bridge club and book club have extra pounds around their middles, wrinkle furrows on their faces, arthritic hands and suffering feet. All of us are constantly searching for comfy shoes. 

We friends are all fighting the same battle: we’re growing older…Few of us are accepting that stage of life. We’re NOT ready to be old!

There’s some small comfort in being able to share this burden with friends.

My head is still stuffed with visions and memories of my younger self. Though the aches in my body disagree, many days I feel too young to be old!

Basically I’ve entered a phase of woman-pause. That’s the time between feeling young and accepting old age.

Twice I’ve been an active mother exhausted and overwhelmed. Today both Kate and Andy are parents with young children, active and over scheduled with school activities, school, sports and music lessons…growing kids are exhausting for working parents.

I’m a grandmother! What a dream job! I can play with these darling, precocious grandchildren then go home to my quiet house and sleep.

The breakdown of movable parts has begun. Though I’m considered to be bionic with new hips and knee, when I sit for a long time and don’t move, my back aches. When I eventually stand, my knees feel too weak to move. Someday my friends and I will be old women with road-map faces. People will read our faces and know where they’re going. Time goes too fast.

Sleep would feel restorative, but now I could call any number of my friends and chat about waking at 2, 3 and 4 in the morning and not getting enough sleep. There’s a whole village of us with lights shining through our windows all hours of the night. We’re a sleepless village of women about the same age, restless and agitated who dread another night of little sleep.

Every once in awhile I launch a new idea to pursue. I write endless poetry and columns. I take out my drying watercolor and acrylic paints. I try drawing my favorite red chairs and bowls of fruit or pots of geraniums. Bright colors and shapes restore my soul for a few hours. But then I get discouraged when I see what I’ve lost by not practicing my skills.

It’s the same problem with the piano. My prized grand piano has sat idle, gathering dust for months and months. It takes up space in the living room where a reading chair and lamp could be sitting inviting me to come enjoy a riveting mystery or historical fiction…drawing me into another world of adventure and excitement.

I’m in a confusing stage of transition. No longer young, but I’m trying to hold on to curiosity about life’s possibilities. I’m not ready to feel as old as I might look.

Thanks to the narrative by Lucy Rose Fischer “I’m new at being old,” the gift from my friend Ruth, a partner in growing older.

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.