I watched Tony Robinson in his Me and my Mum programme, in it was a wonderful woman Rosa who is spending the best part of her young adult life caring for her mother who suffers from dementia. During her part of the programme she made comments concerning how she will deal with growing old, and if she becomes like her mother and as she has no family herself...her ultimate doom...the Care Home.
I worked for years in Care Homes, not all are bad places, some are truly very caring, supportive places but some, a few, are the hell holes of a so called caring society and I have witnessed it for myself.
The thought that one day I would inhabit a place like that has set me thinking...what will I do when I grow old.
For a start one has to pre - suppose that some sort of early warning would be given you that your losing the marbles God granted you or else a seriously strong display that your health is going to trap you in your own home....and hopefully that is when you can make a choice.
Why is a choice necessary in the first place ? well because quite frankly I am surrounded by our caring society as it stands now and I don't give much for my chances of staying free, capable and sane.
I nearly wrote some examples and thought better of it, examples of this modern day where men and women live alone, and are left to struggle because their family are busy or they have no friends to rely on or else they have developed peculiar traits which society cannot accept because we are expected to all live the life the media is displaying as a norm..............
I decided against those examples because quite frankly this blog would turn into a sermon and thats not the purpose here. We ALL know of people who live alone, who struggle, who are independant and often refuse help more out of pride than anything. I know very well that I am guilty of pride. It has stopped me more than once from asking for help and I am still young enough to deal with my life...but one day I won't be.
What to do, go down in a blaze of glory or whimper away until i fade completely ? do I intend to burden myself on my children ? my sister? a beloved who wouldn't know what to do if i fell or had a heart attack ?
or do I let nature take its course ?
Or do I intend to 'leave at my own time' and swallow a packet of whatever!!!!
The sheer fact that I am thinkig about all this is not because I am maudlin but because right up until your 50 it doesn't really matter then you tip over the apex of lifes journey and its all down hill from here...who knows how long you will live for, how long is a piece of stirng ?.......exatly !
So at 50 you think ooops! and start to live a little more freely, by 55 yrs your determined to live well, to spoil the kids/grandkids/friends and then your facing 60 and its a different stroy altogether...this is a serious development, your on the slide now, its getting faster and age is not a number anymore, its an ailment.
Health matters start to raise their ugly head, not colds and flu but arthritis, rheumatism, aching this or that, nasty tests start appearing on the Doctors screens, suddenly life is very very sweet because it might not be yours for much longer.
Then you find you can't lift the cleaner up the stairs so you buy a lighter one and a lighter one again, you find its not so easy to change the curtains anymore, the washing is a chore again.
What was once done over the bath, is now done in a push button box...and its just as tiring as the old method. Food is faddy, bathtime is a nightmare just incase you slip or fall or Gods forbid get stuck in the bath. You smell your clothes and your flesh incase you smell like an old woman..that curously musty smell so familiar when you go visiting your granny is suddenly possibly YOU.
Old is not a mental status its a factual aspect of our flesh and it is failing us by the time we reach where I am now..looking at the door marked 'old woman'. Not yet, not for a few years but I am getting closer to it, very close and it scares the hell out of me.
What was laughed at in my 40's is no longer a laughing matter, the casual remark about needing a Zimmer Frame with go faster stripes becomes a possability. The fear that you might not wake up in the morning becomes a threat.
Whoever said the 'state of mind' stuff obviously didn't wake up with a back that creaks, or a knee that is stiff, or hands that swell up in the cold. They never had to stop eating chocolates and cream and butter or sweets because they just entered heart attack alley with the cholestral levels from hell. Old Age is a state of body AND a state of mind.
Living this curious learning curve is wonderful I love every minute of my life but i also have to start looking ahead to when I am 'old'...where will I live. Well If I stay here it is pounds to a penny I won't ever see my family again because the only time i see them is if I am the one who drives 120 miles to visit, that rules out my sister too. Not becaue they don't care but because living up a mountain is great, I love it, but it is very isolating.
