Aging the Ups and Downs by Paty Jager

 

Aging as many say, isn’t easy. It is for your body as it slows down. Things you’ve done your whole life become harder to do, your memory starts slipping, and unaccounted for aches show up.

My 90-year-old mother-in-law tells me continually, “Don’t get old. It’s not fun.” This is a woman who has been a hard worker her whole life and who can’t sit still. She has to have her hands doing something. She still knits socks for the local retirement home, makes baby afghans she gives away to anyone who wants them, she mows her yard, and likes to put puzzles together.  She buys yarn at the thrift stores because it’s much cheaper than at the stores. People even give her yarn, because she enjoys knitting and crocheting. But she struggles with not being able to do everything she would like to do.

My hope is to have all of her energy when I’m her age!

I have things I want to do but then I think about them and I decide maybe it’s not a good idea. I don’t ride my horse as much as I did. In the morning when I go down and feed, I’ll tell my gelding, Jan, “I think we should go for a ride today.” But later in the day, the thought of catching and saddling him feels like more work than the enjoyment would be.  I need to feed with my boots on instead of my sneakers and catch him while he’s in the corral and ride. But then I feel like I’m being a slacker from my writing. I spent most of this year getting back into writing 4 books a year and preparing my audiobooks to sell on my website.

Me riding Jan last summer. 

This past year, I’ve spent more time at the computer with writing, researching, marketing, and promotion than I did last year. And that’s part of why I haven’t ridden my horse. By the time I finish the writing things, I don’t feel energetic enough to ride.

But I do enjoy going for a walk right after I feed in the morning. The dogs enjoy it as well. The early morning walk gets my brain working and I feel more productive on days when I walk.

As I age, I’m not as much help to my hubby. He calls on me, every once in a while, to help him lift or move something. I’ve found my upper body strength isn’t what it was, and I really don’t want to lift heavy things anymore. Because then I’m sore for several days. He’s still strong but he also has noticed his energy level waning.

With age comes decisions. I plan to keep writing at least until I’m 80. If my mind will continue to work. Hubby has one more year of his semi-retirement. He has been managing an alfalfa ranch for a dairy the last ten years and told them next summer is his last summer to do it. They have put the place up for sale. They know they wouldn’t find another person who would take care of it like it’s his own as hubby has.

We’ve also been discussing selling and moving into a small town where we would be closer to medical facilities and easier to travel to town and to see family. With his full retirement, we hope to travel.

While I’m not scared or sorry to get old, it’s something my mother didn’t get to enjoy. I do hope I am a happy old lady and not a crabby one. 

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 59 novels, 11 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

Website: https://www.patyjager.net

Blog: https://writingintothesunset.net/
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