Getting Old Overnight!

Carpe diem? Is there an option?

“Getting old” was never my plan. Nope, I assumed I’d just keep climbing stairs and leaping on and off trains, planes and subways until one of several looming medical messes took me out. Quickly. You know, one last night at the symphony in a fabulous outfit, a couple of weird weeks with hospice groups singing hits from the 60’s or reading uplifting poetry and then bam! I’m dead.

And it might have worked if I hadn’t gone to a killer gym after nearly a year of no exercise other than walking the quarter-mile from my apartment to the elevator. Like many, in 83 years I’d given absolutely no thought to what lies inside the human knee. Let me tell you, it’s complicated, a snarl of bone, cartilage, tendons and ligaments with Latin names that sound like side dishes at a trendy Italian restaurant.

I ripped one of them, triggering the arthritis that had been lurking near every big bone for years, plus a welter of other maladies and the urging of a knee specialist that I have a TKR (total knee replacement) immediately. (“Before you get any older.” As if I’d actually planned to get this old? Wait, no!) Excruciating pain for 6 weeks when I can’t take pain killers and then 6 months to a year of lesser pain but continued debility? Nah, limping will do.

As in limping all the way from the orthopedist to a cardiologist, otolaryngologist, gastroenterologist, optometrist and neurologist with accompanying CTs and labs, all to learn that suddenly I’m just freaking old. This was not in my plan, but the alternative is so famously bleak that I opted for research instead.

What to wear? I checked out old ladies everywhere for style, and there is one! It involves exquisite manicures, stylish hair and professional-grade makeup, subtly trendy designer outfits and a statement cane. So far I’ve at least got the cane, although managing one along with a bag and even one package is impossible. Does Kate Spade make belly bags? This is going to take time.

What to do at night? I can’t drive at night now, so a lifetime pattern of running to meetings, restaurants, movies, plays, concerts and hanging out with friends has to change. I figure maybe once a week I can take a Lyft to some interesting nocturnal event, but what about the other six nights? I have NO IDEA, so suggestions welcome.

Can I afford to have a decent pizza delivered? I mean a really good one from a locally-owned restaurant that chimes in at $40 for the basic plus caramelized onions and eggplant? No, I can’t, except on the rare occasion that I have a house guest to impress. Like most old people, I manage finances scrupulously because, you know, I’m not going to die any time soon and that pizza will cost $70 five years from now! Nobody hates cooking more than I do, but I’m afraid now is the time to get over that and make my own pizzas. I’ll start with pizza, then branch out. Is there a grocery pizza crust made with yeast?

Should I keep my car? Night blindness, fading vision and slower reaction times make driving, especially at high speeds, unnerving now. Gas, licensing, insurance, upkeep and tolls even for my little Ford Focus are incredibly expensive. I could afford a lavish wardrobe and a personal chef with what I pay to have a car! But Toni, a friend in Oregon who just died, warned me to hang onto my car for as long as possible at any cost. The loss of freedom to go where you want when you want, she said, is the biggest mistake she ever made. It’s the end. I will miss Toni and celebrate her memory by following her advice. I’m keeping my car.

Who am I now? This is probably the biggie and most intriguing question. I’m absolutely not a list of medical diagnoses that after this I will refuse to discuss, ever, nor am I a slide show of my personal history in which no one has the slightest interest. I’m an educated, halfway intelligent octogenarian in the middle of a cataclysmic paradigm shift that cannot be reversed. What function can I, indeed all of us still kicking and functional, perform that has value? Is there an organization of thoughtful, rational (meaning neither left nor right-wing) old people I can join?

Let me know!

Cool glasses may be the answer.