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05/20/2021 12:01 AMThe times they are indeed changing and I don’t need Bob Dylan’s lyrics to remind me of that. Life is reminding me.
My accountant just called to tell me she is retiring; my hairdresser of some 20 years has just moved to Florida; and my best friend from high school, with whom I have maintained contact over the years, is moving to Texas to live with her daughter!
Could it be that I am finally getting (and here I have hesitated for some years to say the word) old. Well, let’s do it...old, old, old. It makes me more uncomfortable every time I think about it because it is indisputably true. People tell me I don’t look my age. It thrills me. Yay for retinol face cream and, of course, retinol night cream!
But, bottom line, it doesn’t really matter whether I look my age or not because I am my age and whatever face creams can do, they cannot roll back reality. Of course, the real world alternative to growing older is painful to contemplate.
I remember a favorite scene from the movie Gigi (and of course even remembering the 1958 movie says much more about me than I need to confess). Hermione Gingold, an aging courtesan, is reminding Maurice Chevalier about their long-ago affair. He pretends he can remember it in the song “I Remember It Well,” but in fact he remembers nothing. At last, he asks sadly, “Am I getting old?” and Gingold replies gracefully, “Oh no, Not you.”
But oh yes, me.
I am. We all are. The question is how to do it, if there are options at all. A friend in my French class sent all the students a clipping about Jeanne Calmet of Arles, France, who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days. It was the longest recorded human life span.
She was no slouch, Jeanne. She rode her bike when she was 100 and at 117, finally gave up smoking. But not for medical reasons. She was nearly blind and didn’t like to ask anyone else for a light.
She sold the right to buy her apartment after her death but she outlived the potential purchaser; his wife had to keep paying on the contract until she, too, died. Jeanne was still living in the apartment. She is reputed to have commented, “Sometimes in life one makes bad deals.”
Where should I live as the years go by? Like Jeanne Calmet, should I stay put, although presumably not for 122 years. Should I move closer to my sons or even move in with one of them as my high school friend is doing? Would that drive my daughters-in-law crazy?
I sense I have the capacity to do that.
I shouldn’t be all grim. First of all, after a lifetime of worry I can report that so far I have not gained weight during the pandemic contrary the way I have reacted to every other crisis in my life.
News reporting on the lockdown suggests that many people in this country have put on something similar to the fabled freshman fifteen during this lost year. Another recent newspaper article said whatever the weight gain, do not go on a fad diet because they never work long term.
I could have written that article.
I speak as someone who has probably lost 200 pounds in my life, by continually gaining and losing the same 20 pounds.
I should also note the article did mention something about eating healthily, about which I probably still have much to learn.
Of late, I have been telling people over the telephone to talk louder because we must have a bad connection.
Finally, it occurred to me that I should have my ears checked. Pride and vanity prevent me from revealing what the doctor told me, but if we are having a conversation, all I want to say is you might be advised to speak up!
Rita Christopher is a journalist and writer who lives in the Connecticut River valley.