When people ask me how I am these days
I can't say “fine”,
or “I've had a touch of flu, but I'm better now”,
Or “actually my hip is sore but it’ll be better soon”
(because maybe it won’t be)
Or “I’ll be back to normal in a day or two”
(because there is no normal now)
A door has opened in my life.
A door that's leading me somewhere I don't think I want to go
It’s a place where I don’t really know myself
A place I've seen other people enter, and thought, oh my god, she looks so old.
And assumed that person would never be me.
But here I am, and I don’t know for sure
If when I take a step, my body will support me.
I've long been afraid of this place.
But now it’s here,
It’s not so bad. It has its joys.
I notice that people really do seem to care for me, and that when I need help I am, after all, allowed to ask for it.
They are happy to give, also:
And that touches me.
Old habits persist. The old ambition hasn't gone, nor the constant need to create.
And create. And create.
Create.
Create, and communicate what I have made.
I wonder if that will ever leave me,
Or the nagging need to be recognised for what I do.
When I perform, I find I can no longer remember the words.
They don't seem to stick somehow,
And I find I cannot move about.
And so I read the text. I sit in chairs.
But I still seem to communicate somehow.
And as I walk ever, so slowly, through the world,
Uncertain of my steps,
I find I have the time to pause, to look, to smell, to hear.
And in the midst of all its horror the world has a beauty I never knew it had.
I know there will be other doors.
And I remember what my grandma said:
“I can’t wait to go”, she said,
“I’m so curious to know what it’s like.
What it’s like on the other side”.
She knows that now.
Or perhaps she’s been extinguished.
Perhaps there is nothing to know.
But I’m not ready for that yet.
What’s on this side is still so very fascinating…
An addition to my comment - Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag is well worth a read. She urges us to accept the illness we might have, take it on board without catastrophising - equally applicable to ageing. 💜
We are not alone but members of a very large cohort of people in their 70s. And the world seems to accept our asking for help and even offering when none is required. Maybe you could write something like Ageing as Metaphor, in which we all accept the inevitably of aches and pains, and falling, and wanting to stay in bed because that's the safest place to be at that moment. I too am constantly curious about the wonderful world we live in. Keep on creating.