I’m the kind of
person who ponders over things. I guess I’m not one of those water-off-a-duck’s-back
kinds of people. Don’t get me wrong, I’m good at making snap decisions, like
what to make for Yom Tov or what kinds of presents to buy for our
grandchildren. But there are other, more challenging decisions that I find
harder to make, especially if they are ones that I’ll have to live with for a
long time, like choosing window coverings. Should they be Roman shades or honeycomb?
Horizontal or vertical? And don’t get me started about the color. Which is
better, bright white or warm white or perhaps butter cream?
And when it comes
to my children, that’s a whole other story. I can spend an exceedingly long time
composing texts if I have to say something that might be hard for them to hear.
I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time crafting and editing my message to make
sure it’s understood and says exactly what I mean without coming across too
harsh. And when my child doesn’t respond right away, I’ll ponder what they’re
thinking about and will wonder whether I’ve hurt their feelings or made them
angry.
Over the past few
years, I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about getting older. It’s
become a study of sorts as I watched the changes that have taken place.
Physical differences, such as the need for less sleep and the need for more
hand lotion. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that loud music physically
hurts my ears and that the old adage of my youth, “the louder the better” no
longer applies.
In the past, I
never noticed how old people looked, much less whether I looked old or not. I
never had an issue with my age and didn’t mind telling anyone how old I was
when they asked. I just went along, minding my own business, until I reached
50. Maybe it was the number that was the game changer because I certainly
didn’t feel this way at 40, even though that was when I started wearing
bifocals. Maybe it was because, one day in my fifties, I noticed that my
eyelids had, unbeknownst to me, disappeared. Or that I couldn’t run for
exercise anymore and that at 60 I needed periodic visits to my physical
therapist to keep my joints from hurting.
As all these
physical changes continued, my daily routine changed; I stopped working full time.
That was a whole new learning curve in and of itself, and I had a lot to think
about. Who was I, and what was I to become? There was much to ponder in those
early days, but before too long, the bumps in the road were repaved and
smoothed out.
Before I knew it,
the days and weeks were filled to bursting in my appointment book, and I began
to wonder how I ever had time to work full time before. Aside from my daily
tasks, there were children and grandchildren to visit, my parents to take care
of, and other myriad details along the way.
Creeping in and
among the details of my life – like a climbing plant that weaves in and out of
a decorative trellis – was this constant concern that I was getting old. I felt
it when I took off my near-sighted glasses to read something up close or when I
couldn’t keep up with the back-and-forth conversations between my children at
the Yom Tov table. I noticed how gleeful I felt when people mistakenly took me
for someone who was 40 years old and how much I wished someone would tell me
those same words at least once a day. More and more, I began feeling like my
elderly parents and, without knowing it, began convincing myself that I was at
the same stage as they were.
My husband and I
enjoy talking with elderly people and always connected very well with them. One
of our dearest friends is a 98-year-old woman. She is such a wonderful
conversationalist and is very intelligent. It’s sometimes hard to remember that
she is as old as she is. We visit her frequently on Shabbos as a way to keep
her company and also because we benefit from her friendship.
One year, some of
this woman’s friends decided to go out for lunch in honor of her birthday and
asked me to join them. There were six of us in all, with half of the group in
their eighties or nineties. It was an interesting experience in more ways than
one. Besides the fact that I had never before gone out to eat at a Chinese restaurant
at 11:00 on a Sunday morning, I hadn’t ever been out socially with a bunch of
women who were all my parent’s age. It didn’t occur to me beforehand that being
with a group of elderly women would feel unusual. I mean, after all, I love
spending one-on-one time with elderly ladies, so what’s the difference? However,
I realized as I sat with these lovely ladies that I was not one of them. I
don’t do things like they do. Among other things, I don’t have a voice that
speaks so softly because of advanced age, and I don’t get in and out of a chair
slowly, in fact, I don’t move slowly at all. And then it dawned on me as clear
as a ringing bell; I am not old.
That realization
hit me like a ton of bricks, and I suddenly wanted to shout it from the
rooftops. It was high time to do a reality check. Although I sometimes feel the
weight of aging in my aching back or carry that heavy burden in my arms with
their saggy skin, I am not yet the old lady that I hope to become one day. My
smile is broad, and I feel light and happy knowing that my contemporaries and I
are still smack dab in middle age… for sure.
Zahava Hochberg
created the weekly column “Musings Through a Bifocal Lens” for the Monsey Mevaser newspaper. Zahava is a regular contributor to the
Where What When and can be reached at zahava.hochberg17@gmail.com.
