Different ways to age.

[gottawonder]

I was thinking about what my Mom was like at 70 (my Mom is now 89), and what my eldest sister is like now at 70 (she just had a birthday recently).

When my Mom was 70-ish at my wedding, I know we were already concerned about her being able to walk around (she had a lot of pain in her knees), and how she would do in the heat (outdoor wedding), and it seemed like she was already being treated with a lot of care.

My sister certainly does have signs of getting older. She wears a hearing aid, she has fairly thin hair, wrinkles, and so on. BUT she has no problems walking around, no problems getting out of her chair, still drives, is pretty independent, and she just doesn't seem old the way my Mom seemed old at 70.

My Mom has this thing, where she gets people to do everything for her. I end up being the one who finds pants, underwear, socks, shoes for her. I've been doing this now for a very long time, even though I don't live anywhere close to her. I only see her a couple of times a year. So, I end up buying her stuff, and half the time she either doesn't like it, or it doesn't fit because she wasn't really sure what size she was anymore (and it's up to me to guess again next time, because she won't tell me if she's put on weight), and I'm just out the money, because by the time I've bought it, gone home to see her, and come back, it's well past the time I can return it. It's a lot of effort for me to try to know what size, color, style, material of pants, shirts, underwear, socks, and shoes she might like, and she's always really vague over the phone about what she wants and needs, and pretends that she'll be "okay with whatever", right up until she tries it on it and isn't suitable.

She had no way of buying anything for herself anymore, because she isn't well enough to get into a car and go clothes shopping in the city that's an hour and a half away from her. The thing is, she didn't go into the city to shop for herself even twenty years ago either. So, at about 70 years old, I already recall that she usually let us kids all buy things for her and bring them to her, instead of her doing the shopping. I know she had a lot of knee pain, but you know, she didn't want to get help for that either. At that point, people were already getting joint replacements with good success, and I wonder if that would have made things different for her.

I understand why she stopped driving by 70. She had cataracts, and didn't get them corrected for a long time, and by then she had been too long away from driving and didn't feel confident about trying again. However, she really also seemed uninterested in going anywhere. I remember that it was already a consideration for my wedding, that she wouldn't go unless it was near by and easy for her.

My sister, at 70, still drives everywhere, and shops for herself, and so on. She just got back from a trip to Germany with her husband. There's no way my Mom would have gotten on a plane at 70 and spent three weeks sight seeing, walking around, dealing with the stress of getting the passports and dealing with airports and so on.

My Mom also is trapped in a way, because she never tries to keep up with any technology. I know that in part she never got a cell phone because of the expense, so that I understand. However, she never made any kind of effort to understand computers at all. They were already everywhere thirty years ago, and she never wanted to even try to use one. So, now that all the information is online, she can't find anything. She can't even find the phone number for many things, because unless it's in the local phone book you won't get it.

She also only listens to a very old-fashioned radio station that doesn't cover any kind of news about world events. She COULD easily get CBC radio which covers world news, but she won't bother changing the station in case she can't find her favorite one again. So, sometimes I'll talk about something like what Trump is up to (she had no idea he was putting kids in detention centers), and she'll be blown away about how I know all of this. She doesn't have any television either, won't watch movies. She only reads crime thriller novels and only listens to the same country music station.

She used to have television and watch the news (mostly for weather) when we were kids, but never did get interested in television for entertainment.

My sister uses computers at 70. She uses the internet, is on Facebook, has a cell phone and uses it to text. She watches movies from Netflix, or DVDs, and even though she still probably would have some issues with setting it all up (her husband does a lot of that stuff), I'm sure she'd find a way to access everything. She is in no danger of being cut off from the world.

No, it doesn't seem strange for someone my Mom's age to not be that interested in the internet, but it was strange to me that she never bothered to figure out how to watch DVDs, or at least have television of some kind. She's seemed very cut off from everything for the last 20 years.

Sure, I could see my sister being more limited in her life by the time she's 90. It's just different to be at that point by 70.

I know that having different physical challenges makes a lot of difference. I know that my sister having a job as an EKG technician gave her a lot of stimulation and involvement in technology and a different world than my Mom, who was a mother and a farmer. My sister lived in the city for a long time, and had to drive there, shop there, and deal with a lot of challenges that my Mom didn't have to deal with.

My Mom came from a time when our small town had everything, and you didn't need to go to the city much. That has changed, and you can't really get clothes in that small town.

I think though, that Mom gave up being independent too early. She kind of relied on us kids to do everything for her at some point (though she always did as much cooking and cleaning and laundry and so on as she could on her own). I know that by 70 she wasn't going to drive into the city, but she also didn't want to drive to the city WITH anyone for the day to shop. She just let others buy her clothing. She wouldn't even bother going into a women's clothing store, and was already unwilling to go into a big grocery store. A lot of it was her knee pain, and she refused to use a scooter or anything.

Anyhow, to some degree this ties into my own thoughts about aging. Since I don't have kids, I won't have the luxury of letting my kids just buy me stuff and drive me everywhere.

I will have to be firm with myself, and if I start having knee problems, I'll try to be brave and go for the replacement surgery instead of just giving up walking.

I'll try to keep up with technology enough to keep in touch with the world and whatever people I still know. I'll try to keep current, and not just cut off the world.

Okay, I just hate the idea of being old and vulnerable and not able to do things for myself.