While the next warp goes into the loom, I think. The routine of dressing the loom requires only surface attention, so deeper thoughts roil and bubble beneath the surface, surging now and again to consciousness…
With another birthday coming soon, I think about what it means to age. I ponder the 8 years of health issues, adverse drug effects taking their toll on top of the various treatments – chemotherapy, by-pass surgery – general aches and pains, growing almost daily, it feels like.
And the only word I can come up with that describes this experience of body failing, energy failing, fitness…failing…and that word is ‘diminished’.
I feel less, in so many ways than I once was. I cut back on my activities and feel further…diminished.
I stop actively seeking opportunities and feel even more cut off from community – a community that is sparse on the ground to begin with, vastly spread out over most of North America – and beyond. And I give up on dreams to travel to these far flung places…and feel further diminished because of a body that simply cannot deal with long distance travel – across the pond (although I still hope for one more trip) or further yet – Down Under.
I mourn the loss of energy, drive, resilience. I stumble through my days, feeling that I ought to be doing more, accomplishing more – and lack the energy to tackle even the most mundane of things.
After two years on beta blockers I had less than zero energy – some of that has returned since getting off of them, but this interlude without them might be short lived as my cardiologist might insist I go back on them when I see her next year on my follow up after the surgery.
My mother turns 90 this year and I watch her – once vibrant and active – slowly move through her days, and I wonder – will that be me, next year? Never mind our age difference, she always out ran me. But now she struggles to walk. Am I seeing my future? Will I even last that long? Would I want to, if I could no longer weave, teach, think clearly enough to write?
Is this what getting ‘old’ looks like?