Yesterday, I had a laser procedure on my retina. Turns out, I have a slight retinal detachment caused by the shedding of the jelly-like vitreous humour (the stuff that causes those floaters in our eyes) which created a small tear in my retina. For quite some time now, my floaters have been partying behind my eyes like college students on a Friday night. At this very moment, as I stare at my white computer screen, a mixture of black bugs and spider webs are gyrating across my line of vision. I’m told my brain will stop seeing them eventually, but I’m not convinced. Good thing I don’t have an insect phobia.
It’s happening. I’m aging exponentially faster every year. I recently renewed my expired passport, and comparing my photo from ten years ago to my recent one, I was shocked to discover I look like a completely different person. My drooping lids are almost covering my eyes, and my face looks like it’s sagging.. At least ten times a day, I walk into a room and forget why I went in there. If I don’t add an event to the calendar in my phone, it immediately evaporates from my consciousness.
When my youngest was born, I was forty-two, and I remember calculating that I’d be sixty when she finished high school. Back then, it all seemed so far off in the distance, yet I blinked for a second and now I’m about watch my little girl graduate and head off into adulthood.
Please make it stop—I’m not ready!
Many of my close friends have lost their parents recently. My own mother, while still relatively healthy, is approaching eighty-seven and starting to really slow down. She recently purchased a “state of the art” walker which she likes to joke “does not come with the motivation to walk!” We talk openly about her eventual death, and she has begun making lists to ease the process for all of us when it does happen. It’s difficult to fathom our lives without her, but there’s absolutely nothing we can do to stop it from happening.
I’m losing steam as well. Household projects get put on the back burner because I just don’t have the energy I used to. Lately, all I want to do is dig in the garden, read, and occasionally, work on my second novel, although my computer also doesn’t come with a “motivation to write.”
I’m really trying to focus more on the present moment, which by god, is a task in itself. Why is it so damn hard for so many of us to enjoy the now when it’s right there in front of our faces every second of every day?
Perhaps giving ourselves more grace is the answer. I’m just too old to have to prove myself worthy all the time. I don’t have to fold laundry to justify watching Netflix. If I want to cook a meal for my family, I can let them do the dishes. Hanging out with the neighbors on the front lawn is more important than cleaning the bathroom. Watching a corny movie with my husband is much more satisfying than organizing a closet.
As my vision begins to clear, and I will try with all my might not to blink too often. Focusing on the wonder of life, I know that the seemingly insignificant things will indeed appear to be gilded.
The hell with the dancing bugs–I’m putting on my rose-colored glasses.
A gallery of some of the good things in my life: