Losing Ground

It starts in small ways:  I get a cold and it takes a week to heal, but I feel tired for two; broken toe heals in two months, not one; I’m stiff when I get out of bed – I could go on, but you get the picture.  When my older daughter was visiting a few weeks ago, I asked her if she was worried about me and she hesitatingly said ‘yes’.  She worries because I live so far away, and my community is small and isolated.  She talked to my partner, Wonono and me about moving to Portland, where her sister lives, and way closer to her home in Bend, too.  If something happened, they could help.  Something?  Stroke, heart, health….  Good Lord.  My younger daughter and I were talking about my birthday the other day on the phone and she said, “You’re going to be 80 in 12 years and that’s old!”  I held my breath, thinking, ‘God, that is old and I’m almost there!’  I know my daughter didn’t mean to scare me – that was her fear about what will happen to both her and me as I age – but it did.  Wonono is 9 years younger than I am: will he still love me when I am infirm?  He is not the kind of man to vanish, but still, that’s a big age difference.  Should we move closer to the kids so we have help when we need it?  If we moved to Portland, would his daughters come our way, so they are closer to their dad?  Can we leave this tiny, seaport town we live in, with its peace and quiet, its beauty, its activism, our friends, and The Rose Theatre?  (It’s an amazing place, and one of the things that I love about my town. Google it and see what it offers.)  Do I have the energy to make a  whole new set of friends.  I talked about family last week, and how important it is, and that is true.  Will being close to all of them make up for the losses I’ll face leaving here?  I really don’t know.  But I find myself thinking about all of this more and more every day.  How long will I continue writing?  What would I do if I didn’t write?  Visit with friends?  Read?  Hike?  Take more Nia classes?  Swim laps more often?  I wouldn’t stop writing, even if my novels have no readers but my grandchildren.  Exercising the mind seems as important as exercising the body.  And I liked challenge, even if I am getting older.  When I actually looked at some house listings on line in Portland, and sent copies of the listings to Leah to peruse, she sent a URL that lists crime by zip code there.  Yet something else to have to consider, to say nothing of selling and buying a house in this market.  I remind myself that I have friends in their late 70’s and early 80’s who still exercise, are vital, read voraciously and even demonstrate.  I know I will be that kind of 80, but … if it takes longer to heal now, it will take even longer then.  How will I cope with those changes?  How will my kids?  How will Wonono?  This, as I prepare to drive south to visit my younger daughter and her kids.  At least if we move I won’t have to make this four-hour drive once a month! There is good news somewhere here.  I guess I’m going to have to write more blogs on aging.  And remind me, how did I get here?  My mother was this age, not me!