Geriatric Spats

The spat begins on one of two themes:

I am deaf.

I am losing my mind.

And Bob is frantically worried about both possibilities.

I have to admit: I don't hear well in my left ear. I have trouble hearing at all in a crowded room. I am concerned.

"So I don't understand," Bob said the other day while our friend Kim was visiting. "Why don't you go to Dr. Carter and get a referral for a hearing evaluation? Why do you keep putting it off?"

Kim and I answered as one: "Because Dr. Carter would make us weigh in and we're both feeling fat-- and don't want to get in trouble with her."

Kim sighed. "My husband thinks I'm deaf, too," she said. "But I won't go in to see Dr. Carter until I've lost 10 pounds."

Bob shook his head, stunned at our insanity in unison.

The losing my mind spat has a bit more urgency. Bob gets concerned when, lost in my thoughts, I walk right by someone I know without seeing him or her.  "I'm so worried," he said. "Sometimes, you just don't pay attention to the world around you."

It happened again yesterday on our way into the local supermarket.

I had found a small cart -- at a premium in our location -- and was walking into the market shrouded in a barrage of thoughts:

Will I be able to write the books I'm longing to write? To get those proposals in to my agent before he loses interest -- or retires?

Will Bob find help at the Epilepsy Center when we have our first visit next week? Will he have to start a new medication? Is it possible to regulate his epilepsy related mood swings so that he can enjoy life more consistently? Will he continue to be unable to drive for the next few months while he adjusts to his medication? 

Will I manage to drive us everywhere without a major traffic incident or marital unrest over my driving/Bob's backseat driving? It's no small thing. My driving isn't what it used to be. I've had a couple of undeniable near misses lately. Am I reaching the point in life, already, when I really shouldn't be driving?

Will I ever get to L.A. to meet my new little nephew Henry before he gets out of the adorable baby stage and into the screaming stranger anxiety phase of life?

What's happening with my friend Mary and when can I manage my next visit with her?

Is it a mistake to be going to my 45th college reunion in October -- especially now that I've read that Northwestern accepted a major cash donation from the notorious Koch brothers (and so I'm not sure I even like my alma mater anymore)?

What's happening with my sister and her health problems? Why hasn't she called back? What if she's in real trouble and is just too depressed to ask for help?

Can I stand another three months of vitriolic political campaigning and, even more, the smug, omnipresent face of Paul Ryan, my personal pick for most loathsome politician in a very crowded bipartisan field of loathsomeness? Is democracy dead? Are we sliding irrevocably into an era of darkness?

"Kathy!" Bob's urgent tone halted my reverie. "I can't believe it. You just walked by Jake, our Fitness Director you see every day. But this time, you didn't even see him! You're doing this a lot. You're losing it! I'm really afraid..."

Harrumping, I headed for the vegetable aisle. "I was just thinking...." I said, more than a little defensively.

"You don't think there's anything the matter, do you?"

I stopped, suddenly upset. "I don't know," I said.

I don't think I'm losing it.  Of course, neither does a dear friend's husband who is definitely in the tragic grip of dementia.  He can't understand why she won't let him drive or why she has hired caregivers to be with him when she can't be. Am I in similar denial? 

I got an email from Kim this morning: "My husband and I had a spat yesterday and I don't even remember what it was about," she wrote. "I think somewhere along the way, one of us said something about Alzheimer's...."

And I think about the ghosts and goblins of older age. When we were young, we feared monsters in our closets and alligators under the bed. When we were a little older, some of us feared that we wouldn't lose our virginity before a nuclear holocaust would blow up the world. Still later, some of us feared not finding a good job or true love or not making it to retirement.

Now that we're retired, there are new fears: losing our senses, our mobility, our independence.

And so many of our spats and squabbles these days are around those with themes like

Why don't you take better care of yourself?

Why don't you seek medical help for something that could be so easily fixed?

Why don't you keep more active mentally and physically -- so you don't lose it?

Behind so many of these sentiments is an urgent fear: the fear of decline, disease and death, the fear of losing each other in so many ways in the days to come. And sometimes these fears collide with fierce denial or fearful self-examination:

Could I really need a hearing aid?

Am I not as sharp as I used to be?

Is this the beginning of the big decline?

And so we go around and around with our concerns and our fears and our denials -- with a sense of anticipatory loss and grief as we spar with each other.

Bob and I were still discussing my possible decline yesterday as we unloaded groceries from the back of our new SUV. "I'm leaving the hatchback up because I'm going back for the bags of cat litter," he told me as we left the garage. I nodded, still irritated and anxious, wondering if he might be right about my losing it.

Seven hours later, my cell phone rang. "Kathy, are you all right?"

It was the voice of our next door neighbor Judith.  "Carl and I noticed your garage door and car hatchback open when we left the house at 2:30 this afternoon," she said. "We just got back. It's 9:30 and your garage door and car hatchback are STILL wide open."

"Bob!" I called, barely suppressing my giggles of glee. "You forgot to get the cat litter, close the car and the garage!"

"Oh, jeez!" he muttered, rushing past me.

And between my chuckles, the worry sprang up. I wondered "Is he losing it?" Such a minor thing. So easy to forget something like that. It's probably nothing. But still....since we've been talking about losses...

And I made the decision then and there -- as we all do day to day -- to simply feel blessed that today, right now, we're okay, competent and in love. We may walk a bit more slowly. We may not hear each other as well. We may be a little forgetful. But, for today, we're just fine. 

We have no guarantees about next year, next week or even tomorrow. But today, right this minute, life is undeniably good.