The Speeding Bullet

The older you get - the faster you get older. I'm 77 and in relatively good health. The important word is relatively. Aches and pains I've got plenty. Several decades ago I had a heart attack. That's when the pills began. Every day I drop these magic marbles into my yaw. There's beta blockers, aspirin, statins, antidepressants, and about 10 more lesser pills. They must work. I'm still here.  A few years ago my conversation acquired holes and pauses. Aha! Dementia. I've found ways to cover embarassment by mumbling something unintelligible or gathering a polite cough behind my bony claw. 

Apparently there is a small chance that I will eventually get parked in a blithering facility where someone will tell me if I ate breakfast or didn't. Meanwhile: "I ain't going nowhere." At least no where soon.

Our shaggy long hair mini dachshunds wake me if the doorbell doesn't. If the housae was on fire they would sleep through it. Priorities. Reclining chairs have become more important than sleeping pills. I sit with the intention to read or watch the telly but as soon as I recline my eyelids begin to droop.

Too many friends have gone missing but they have left behind a treasure trove of memories in my mind.  Once in a while I think that's the only thing in there. While on the subject of death, ever notice that the battalion of the dead is increasing fast. It is you know. I like to think they are all on duty and waiting for each of us. Logic tells me this is unlikely, but what the hell. I often wake from my mid-day nap with a mental picture of a long ago departed friend. The picture lasts no more than an instant but I spend the rest of the day wondering "why" the picture was there in the first place.

Depression? 

I regularly get down in the dumps. Do people still say that when they have chin on the ground depression? My patient wife, the wife with all of the answers, like Rumpoles "she-who-must-be-obeyed," cheers me back to normalcy. When I say "I don't know how I'm going to get through this,"  she often says: "Neither do I. But you will."

The only thing new about death is that technology has made it possible to see and hear more about death than ever before.  Newspapers have more photos of bloody gruesome death and  automobile advertising than everything else combined. On the telly it's disasters, war pictures and viagra ads.

The sunny side of being elderly (hate that word) is related to the statement: "I don't give a damn." 

• If I don't want to do something, I don't do it." 
• If I don't want to hear something, I turn the hearing aide down". 
• If I don't want to speak in front of a crowd, I plead advancing dementia and say a few words in gibberish. 

I think you get the picture. 

Who are you again?