70

 Aahh, 70.  The "golden years" of life.  

Hardly.

It's hard to be 70.  You've now entered the years of:  being dismissed out of hand, being invisible, being ignored - irrelevant (I call those the three 'I's.  Too bad unimportant starts with u.)  You're old fashioned and out of touch.  You've lost any common sense or knowledge you might at one time possessed. Same goes for personal taste in fashion, furniture and friends.  (Fashion - you care more now about being comfortable rather than trendy.  Though in my mind trendy is a silly thing to follow anyway.)

Your body refuses to act like your mind thinks it ought to.  You have no control over what it does, how it responds to much of anything (food, medicine, exercise, stairs).  

Your mind?  You now have a fresh understanding of the term addlepated.

You need connection with other people. Connection that is often hard to come by - see the sentences following "It's hard to be 70" above.  That's why.  People are busy.  You're not. Someone will say they're loving spending time with their family.  Blithely ignoring the fact that you are still part of that family.  But you really only get the time leftovers, or the check-off on the list.  (An hour visit as part of an obligation isn't really connecting.)

You need to feel like you still have purpose and a reason for being alive and somewhat valuable in this world.  Not just a body taking up space and marking off the minutes until you die.  

Was talking to a friend regarding her family situation.  Dad in his 80's.  Stepmom not healthy, Dad neither.  Siblings are fretting over how much of his money will drain to taking care of her.  She keeps saying,"it doesn't matter.  It's his money.  Not his kids' money.  Unless he wants to leave them some. He should spend his money as he wants."  Such a healthy attitude.  And a scarce one.  (Sometimes it can feel like other people are just marking off the minutes until you die and then they can have your money.  My position:  if you don't deserve more of their time, attention and love while you're living, they don't deserve your money when you're gone.)

This is the time you meant to be traveling.  DangCOVID ruined that pretty good, at least for us, people who try to be responsible .   

And I could go on and on.  I guess this is weighing heavily on me because of the last several weeks.  I can't honestly adequately describe how miserable I've been.  I've really made an effort to be a better patient.  Didn't quite work.  I didn't know anyone could cough as hard as I've coughed.  And slept as little as I've slept (that cough) and could take medication for said coughing that had as little benefit (basically none) as I've taken. Or could have a head hurt and ears ache as much as mine have recently.  

I've felt like a walking germ factory.  And in the world's current COVID climate, a cough immediately sends nearby people scurrying away.  Just the kind of rejection that's hard.  I don't blame them.  I caught this somewhere.  And I absolutely-positively-determinedly don't want to share it with anyone else. 

This morning I feel a small spark of hope.  I finally started the antibiotics. I've had two doses.  My earaches aren't completely gone, but definitely diminished.  The headaches are still pretty strong, but don't seem as bad with the smaller earaches. I finally managed to control the cough enough over night that I got about 5 hours of sleep.  Ate breakfast and promptly went back to sleep in the recliner.  (So grateful for recliners.  Not even a remote possibility of sleeping laying down.)  Even the broken refrigerator is less of an irritation.  

So, 70.  A challenging age to be. Hopefully we'll be able to find some fun.  I'm wishing for a better attitude about it all.  But grateful to be 70 and not stopped at 69, get my meaning?