{"id":7292,"date":"2023-05-17T06:58:36","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T10:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=7292"},"modified":"2023-05-17T06:58:36","modified_gmt":"2023-05-17T10:58:36","slug":"its-not-because-youre-aging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2023\/05\/its-not-because-youre-aging\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Not Because You\u2019re Aging"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once you reach a certain age, it\u2019s hard not to blame your problems on aging. Even when you know better.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened with a seemingly trivial difficulty I had the other day. That morning, when I picked up my reading glasses, one of the arms fell off. I inspected the hinge where the arm met the rest of the frame, and the screw that had held it together had gone missing. No problem. I had one of those kits with a miniature screwdriver and half a dozen little screws.<\/span><\/p>\n

I spent the next half hour trying to poke the tiny screw through the miniscule hole in the hinge and couldn\u2019t do it. It must be my age (88), I thought. I had to squint to see what I was doing, and surely there was a tremor in my hand as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019d have to ask for help. I was not only frustrated but embarrassed that I couldn\u2019t manage this simple repair by myself.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I tried calling the optician who sold me the glasses, she wasn\u2019t in. Who else could I turn to? My kids don\u2019t live nearby, and my close friends also have eyesight problems or hand tremors. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOld age is the pits,\u201d I told myself gloomily.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eventually, I decided to go to the medical department in the retirement community where I live. This wasn\u2019t exactly a medical emergency, but it was such an easy thing to fix. There must be someone there with good eyesight and steady hands who could help.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure enough, the nurse practitioner was willing. And she tried\u2014for about 20 minutes\u2014but wasn\u2019t any more successful than I\u2019d been, so she did what nurses do: she bandaged the glasses, using paper tape, which she wound around and around the empty hinge to hold the arm in place. Not pretty, but it worked.<\/span><\/p>\n

The following morning, the optician was available. While she struggled to peel off the paper tape, she complained, \u201cWhy don\u2019t people use common sense? All you need is the tie from a loaf of bread to fix the hinge temporarily.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Belatedly remembering I\u2019d done that at least once in the past, I silently cursed my aging memory. <\/span><\/p>\n

But though she must have had lots of practice, it took the optician a good 20 minutes to repair the glasses. It was then that I finally realized I\u2019d been wrong to assume old age was responsible for my failure. Reattaching the arm just wasn\u2019t easy.<\/span><\/p>\n

The moral of the story is that as you grow older, it\u2019s tempting to blame all sorts of things on your own aging. Getting older certainly does cause many changes in body and brain, but it\u2019s folly to hold it responsible for all the things in your life that are difficult or unpleasant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Living in an ageist society teaches you that older people are mostly unhealthy and often mentally incompetent, so you expect the worst. Your legs ache after a morning of shopping? You write that off as something caused by living so long, ignoring the fact that you don\u2019t get much exercise and you\u2019re out of shape. You can\u2019t remember the name of someone you met yesterday? You pin that on your aging brain\u2014even if you\u2019ve never been good at remembering names. <\/span><\/p>\n

When I couldn\u2019t fix my glasses, I was wrong to assume the problem was my age. Actually, my hands don\u2019t usually shake, and my eyesight is only slightly worse than it was 20 years ago. <\/span><\/p>\n

Blaming aging (wrongly) can make you feel helpless, because there\u2019s nothing you can do about aging, and can undermine your self-confidence as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

I hope to know better next time. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once you reach a certain age, it\u2019s hard not to blame your problems on aging. Even when you know better. That\u2019s what happened with a seemingly trivial difficulty I had the other day. That morning, when I picked up my…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more It\u2019s Not Because You\u2019re Aging<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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