By O.Kay Jackson

Without a thought you leap lightly from the back of the pickup truck, until one day you pause, ponder the jump, decide you might hurt an ankle or a knee – and you climb down instead. Head’s up – you’re now old.

We all know, barring an untimely accident or bad health surprise, we’re going to be old one day. We all know we’re getting older. But what we don’t know when we’re young is that old age doesn’t slowly sneak up on you – it arrives with a thud and when it does, it can not be denied.

Oh, there are preliminary hints. Rigorous exercise is followed the next day by bigger aches and pains than there used to be, we’re misplacing the keys or other items more often, and then there’s that sudden need for reading glasses for those formerly 20/20 eyes.

But we don’t connect the dots, because all the little hints are so easy to ignore when we’ve always been so busy. We had to take care of the kids, juggle two jobs plus home care, carpool to all those soccer games, get to the gym, keep up with ever-changing technology, rush, rush, rush from one activity to another.

We became “human doings, not human beings;” too busy to even notice that decision to descend more carefully from the truck bed, and too preoccupied to hear that distant bell go “ding” when we did.”

But from that day forward all the formerly easy things are easy no more.  Like bringing in the groceries, or taking the dog out for that third necessary outing, or tackling that paperwork you used to do religiously that now piles higher and deeper in the basket by the kitchen door.

You took the noise and antics of small children in stride until that day when you realize their volume and energy in large doses made you jittery. Too much of any good thing now quickly becomes a bad thing. Too much noise, company, confusion or excitement of any kind, overwhelms the senses.

Your dentist, who for thirty-five years has drilled, and filled, and capped, and cleaned your pearly whites, now tells you they are beyond his skills and pulls them out. Your new teeth look wonderful, but in your own ears you sound like you are talking through a picket fence. And your mouth now feels crowded, heavy and clumsy.

You have to excuse yourself after meals to go rinse your teeth, and one day as you do you have a sudden vivid memory of your father doing the same at the kitchen sink. And then you remember him saying how his store-bought teeth made him hisssss words with an “s” in them.

            Other memories, bits and pieces of conversations and events long past, return. Of when Mom refused to learn how to dial “one – then the area code – then 555-1212” to get long distance information.

“It’s too hard,” she said, firmly.

I laughed then at her stubbornness and made those calls for her, even as her resistance baffled me. My mother was smart, capable, accomplished. She could do anything she set her mind to, but she had set her mind against change. She planted her little feet and refused to move into the future. She was done, even though her life went on for decades after that decision. She had climbed down from the truck.

My brother, Robert, eight years older than me, told me not long ago that he’s moving into “old, old age.” And I knew just what he meant. I’m not there yet, but it’s coming.

Falling asleep in the chair in front of the TV at night, the true domain of old people, had suddenly becomes my own turf. But I don’t nod off on those nights when I’ve had an afternoon nap, also formerly the domain only of old people. I’ve come to terms – reluctantly – with accepting rest as necessary.

My Dad, in his youthful fifties, went for a walk on the long sands of his youth inTynemouth,Englandwith his two old uncles, Billy and Britt. At one point he urged them to walk faster, saying, “Why the slow pace?”

And they, in their thickNorth countrydialects, said, in unison, “Are ye daft, man? We’re in our eighties. We’re aald.”

Dad adjusted his gait, but told me he remembered that conversation more than once as his own brisk pace slowed over time to a walk, and then, in his 90s, to a careful shuffle.

But it took Dad a long time to slow down. He had always been a man in a hurry. Once, when he was in his 70s and walking briskly down a street, he caught sight of a very old man racing along the same street.

“I wonder where that old bastard is going in such a hurry?” he thought, and then laughed out loud when he realized the galloping old man was his own reflection in a storefront mirror.

And at that memory you stop and go to the bathroom mirror to have a good long look. The eyes of the-child-you-were stare back at you from the face of an old woman.  When exactly did that happen? When did young, not-so-young, and older, become old?

And then, inevitably, that heaviest of all questions, “How much time have I got left?”

            The only people willing to talk about any of this are your peers or those even older. But those conversations, laced as they are with long recitals of aches, pains, and current medical problems, are not to be courted.

Younger people don’t get it, because they can’t. Your children greet the news that you are too tired to do something with incredulity. They remember the young woman you, the dynamo, the go-go-goer and they don’t understand.

“What?” they ask. “You’re too tired to go out to dinner with us tonight?”

            Well, yes actually, I am.

I’d rather stay home with my cats, my books, my favorite TV shows. I’d rather cook what I like for dinner than order an over-priced, over-cooked hamburger or too highly seasoned piece of chicken. I’d rather just put my feet up and relax.

They, however, can still jump from the truck. Their energy hums; mine snoozes.

            It all sounds depressing, but the good news is, it isn’t. I’m moving easily into my second childhood, and this time I’m going to do my childhood right to have the childhood I want.

 I’m finally going to have a dollhouse again. I’ve wanted one for a very long time.  I’ll play (not work) in my garden.  I’ll go walk on the beach anytime I want. And while there I’ll remember the good times of my life because, with my old lady glasses, I now see more clearly what is – and is not – of value.

What I want to do today is more important than what others might want me to do today. I deserve my own brand of fun. I know what makes me happy and I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I laugh more. I enjoy more. I reach out more. Old friends, with an expiration date, have more value.

And Life at a slower pace – in all its glorious and magnificent diversity – does, too.

Thanks to O. Kay for letting me post her work…. she more at http://www.okayjackson.com