A Single Middle-Aged Woman...

He lies there fidgeting with the wires and tubes, then attempts to turn over on his side so he can get comfortable and sleep. He dozes intermittently lying on his back because the inclined head end of the bed prevents him from stretching out.  He is ever polite and keeps his sense of humor...so far. It’s the beginning of day two detox. My mind is as boggled as his only for different reasons. What a fascinating organ the brain is. How it interprets visual input and spits out its perception in jumbled mixture of memory and reality, and fantasy. As we age, especially we who are single and of a certain age middle and beyond, we must stay connected with the people in our lives that we respect, trust, and love lest we find ourselves in a strange ER bed out of our mind with confusion and fear. Give your digits to these people in your lives. Keep an ICE (In Case of Emergency)  list of medications, family members to call for help, where to find insurance info, house or car keys...

I started this blog when I was in my late 40’s. I felt weird labeling myself as middle-aged then, because I still felt, acted and was told I looked years younger than my age. Now, I know why. I hadn’t truly reached middle age yet. I’m 60 years old today and I’m just now on the cusp of middle age, by my life expectancy standards anyway. I strive to live to be 143 years old, so you see? At 60, I haven’t really hit the halfway mark, yet. I have a whole list of things I want to do after I retire from education but stopping isn’t on it.

Recently, I joined a baby boomers meetup group in an effort to meet people and have some folks my own age to play with.  I like singer songwriter music so I rsvp to attend a festival in a local town.  A short appointment took longer than expect so I arrived an hour late. On the drive to the event I crossed two low water crossings, the second of which was a little too high for my comfort level. Onset anxiety creeps in with fears that it’ll rain while I’m at the event and the water will get even higher, too high for my little compact car to wade through and I need to take that road to get work. Add to that I’m going to walk into an establishment alone to meet total strangers. The place was mildly crowed, the singers were good and the bar had only Waterloo sparkling water. I’ve become addicted to Topo Chico in glass bottles..a sparkling mineral water from Mexico. Tingles the tongue and is super refreshing on a hot day, which today was not. So, I guess the Waterloo wasn’t a loss ...