Age

For those of us who make it, age is a wondrous adventure. It’s a time of rediscovery and a time to take stock of our lives. It’s a time where we know what we want if not how to get it. It’s also a time to be honest about our lives, what got us to this point. What are our strength and weakness, where do we begin this next chapter of out lives. How to make the best of these years so that we can go out with dignity and some sense of order. I look and listen as around me people die from the accumulated lives the have lived, some good and some less so. All those things we did in our youth come back to haunt us, to point a finger at us. I’ve gotten off pretty easy so far, I hope to continue living a charmed life for awhile yet.


Now the hard part begins, the dirty day to day part, the hard slogging part. Life is mine to reinvent, to make of it what I will if I only have the strength and courage to make it a reality. The stroke has left my self-confidence shaken to it’s very core. I worry everyday over the smallest of details and those details threaten to consumed me. I fear that I’ve lost a part of myself that was essential to living my life as I knew it. I’m struggling to get that part of me that was so confident and self-assured back into place. I know it didn’t disappear into space, I hope I can recapture that vital part of my thinking. It’s been a long recovery and it’s not quite over yet. A brain injury takes three years to show any real improvement, the first two years are spent healing. Getting back the functions that one takes for granted, like breathing and moving. Those are skills learned in childhood and refined over a lifetime of practice. You don’t just get those skills back you have to relearn them and that take’s time.

I’ve been using my tourism group to help me practice all of my skills especially meeting people and carrying on a conversation. Because of my mental stutter I’m more comfortable around people I know and know about my stroke. It’s much harder to meet people cold and to be searching around for words to fill the vacuum. When I have the camera it deflects a lot of the communicating, I can hide behind the camera and my work instead of talking. With the economy there’s
no reason to bring the camera so I have to invent another reason for being there. I’ve always sat and watched the group for my shots, for people of interest but that’s not communicating that’s telling a story. I have to get back the art of meeting people. Being able to glad hand someone and to make it seem effortless. That’s a real skill and it doesn’t come easily to me or for most people. It take’s confidence and self-assurance and an easy way of speaking. I have a new appreciation for people with a speech impediment. I also understand people with handicaps much better that I used to. When I was taking therapy there were some days I’d feel so down and lost. Then I’d look around and see the people who were hurt much worse than I and I’d feel blessed again.

Life is so much harder on some than others. Life is a difficult struggle, only the strong survive. As we age we are lulled into a complacency, to think that we are above the struggle because of our age, our life span. I guess that’s because people start holding the doors for us or people are kind to us and make allowances for us. Without noticing it we take that kindness for granted. Believe me the economy is the great leveler in out lives, it put’s each of us on a level playing field again. And when you are unsure of yourself that add to your burden.