Thoughts of the elderly

We don't always think of all the problems with getting old. You can't do things anywhere near as fast as you used to do but yet you still want them done.

Lifting things that are heavy become a real chore so how do you haul 40 lb feed sacks around? Your bags of garden soil? Use a wheelbarrow they say, right trying to walk with my balance with a wheelbarrow should be made into a cartoon and I still have to lift them out of the vehicle into that wheelbarrow. I know I will put plastic down in the back of the car and load it by the bucket as I use it.

Laundry can even be a problem, never realized how much bending is associated with laundry. I swear my arms are shorter to fold those sheets and blankets too. Ok we can just roll them up and put them in the cabinet and shut the door and no one will ever see them anyway.

Dishes are not a problem yet except for the cast iron pans when they are full and they hurt arthritic hands and wrists.  Why does the chore I hate be the one I still get to do with no excuses?

Baking a turkey is almost an impossibility as they are heavy in that pan..I know we can leave it in the oven and just eat all of it..Can you pretend a chicken is a turkey?  The way I am going pretty soon it is going to be a game hen.

Vacuuming is one chore that kills you period, your arthritic hands, your back, your knees and your feet.
So, put in a hard wood floor where we don't have to vacuum except with the little floor cleaner.

Taking a bath becomes a long forgotten memory because you are afraid you might never get out of the tub once you get into it. I know float on your stomach until you can get your knees under you and then hang on to the side and stand up..whoops forgot about that knee replacement and you can't put weight on your knees. Oh the dreams of relaxing bubble baths will have to do.

Remember what it was like to set around on a winter's eve in front of the fireplace. Well going out and chopping wood is no longer an option. Order it chopped already is expensive and you still have to carry arm loads of wood into the house. I know get a pellet stove,  40lb bags of pellets for your stove?

I might have to give up eating anything or being very thrifty as I can't do big shopping trips anymore.  I think going grocery shopping at Costco may be one of the worse. Everything comes in big amounts and you always buy a ton to save another trip of 50 miles to get there. I don't think anyone goes to Costco and gets just a few things. By the time I pack all of it in I don't want to ever go back without counting all the miles you put in shopping in the huge store. So now I buy things almost daily where I don't have to pack it into the house. That is my daily walking program.

I have decided that weeds are greenery for the garden and flower beds. I can't bend over and pull them anymore as I tend to be pulled over onto my face with my balance instead of the weeds being pulled out.

Walk they say, well now I have to use a cane or a walker. Those walkers don't fit anywhere you want to go and are a real pain. I also hate the way everyone looks at you when you use them. They seem to think if you have a walker then you can't see, hear or think and treat you as a sub-human.  I hate it when I go into a store with my granddaughter and they don't want to talk to me, they won't hardly look at me, they talk to her..Give me a break, I am buying this and she doesn't know what I like the best. I am old not stupid.

I hate my eyes going bad. You look so forward to when you have a license to drive. That shows independence, now I am back to being dependent on someone to take me everywhere like a small child. I am thankful I can still see the beauty of the flowers and see my loved ones faces.

The worse thing of all about being old is watching your friends pass on, every week you have fewer and fewer friends. The friends that understand are all gone away and the young treat you like you have nothing to offer. They don't want to listen to your stories and tell you that you are living in the past. Well that past thought me a lot of things about life that young ones still have to learn, remember some day you will be old too.

Different ramblings from my elderly friends. God bless their souls, they did not have the easy life that we did. People from that generation are tough, thoughtful, honest and hard working.

Appreciate your elderly while you can as they won't always be there and then you will have wished you would have listened to them. I hope you never get old and live in a cocoon where no one any longer cares about what you feel.

We do not treat our elderly good, they used to be respected, the older they were the more respected their opinion was. Now we throw them in a home and never go see them except maybe for mothers day or fathers day or their birthday and to drop off a present that took you 10 minutes to buy and means nothing to anyone to satisfy your guilt.  They never abandoned you when you were little, nor did they put you in a home until you could take care of yourself so why do we do that to our elderly?