Aging is a daily habit

I used to think that I knew everything about aging, so I started this blog. My plan was to encourage my friends, family and any others interested in this life we share to open up about our encounters with aging. It appears that most want to just read, and that is fine with me, but it is hard to interact with you when I am the only one speaking. However, I do enjoy the personal emails that I receive from you and try to honor your anonymity.

I have found that aging is a daily habit of mine. I think about it almost all the time. This is not necessarily a bad thing or an obsession. I just think about it. I wonder why I do not want to accept it as a part of my life, even though it is something we do every day. Some days, I think that I just live in denial and expect that I will be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise until the end of time. But then there are days when I know better.

I know this probably sounds crazy, but as you know, I am a school bus driver and am inundated with youth. I adore my little elementary school students because they are in total awe of life. I love their awe and wish that I could be just like them. They are learning to read and their worlds are taking on new shapes for them. Their social skills keep me laughing as I watch them change boyfriends and girlfriends almost daily. At the same time, I am amazed at the ones who realize that I...the bus driver..am a real human and do a real job and they actually take the time to look me in the eye and thank me when I deliver them to their destinations. There isn't a day that goes by that I do not learn something from them.

Then there are the high school teenagers. I shudder to think that I was ever that worldly and naive all at the same time. Then I realize that maybe I was and maybe I still am. I have learned a few things along the way, but my initial reaction, my gut instinct to life and its offerings is still pretty much the same. I try to treat life with a great deal of patience and accept people for what I think they are. I also try to remember that The Golden Rule rules the heart and mind of most of us.

Thoughts of my mom

Yes, I miss her. I miss her much more than I want to admit and probably more than I ever thought I could allow myself to miss her. Our final hours together were not the best. Certainly nothing that would bring tears to ones eyes. Our final hours were strained, to say the least. Maybe I am still grieving even though it has been over a year since her passing. Maybe I am still angry that she didn't last forever or at least last until I was ready to let go.

Sometimes I think that she was trying for months to tell me that she was dying, but I preferred to live in denial and not hear her. I can remember feeling exhaustion when trying to talk to her. I would call her to tell her something fun and good that was happening in my life. Before I could finish with my news of the day, she would enthusiastically interrupt me with her story about experiencing the same thing years ago or with some tale about how she had hurt herself and wasn't healing properly. I wish I had given her more of my attention and listened with more heart. She certainly deserved that from me.

My mom was very frail. For several years before she died she struggled to keep 95 lbs on her less than 5 ft frame. She ate like a horse, but just couldn't put on the pounds. She struggled with CHF(congestive heart failure) for years and was convinced at the end that she had CA(what my Register Nurse mom called cancer) of the lungs. My mom smoked all of her adult life and for years feared that she might have lung cancer so maybe that is true. She certainly had the cough to verify her fear. Close to the end,she was too fragile to do a biopsy on the spot that XRAY showed on her lungs. The doctors feared that her lung would collapse or that she could bleed to death. So, considering her fragility, age and lifestyle, the biopsy was ruled out. We will never know if the cancer is what got her.

The strongest thought that lives in my brain is that the Doctor told my mom that she would probably live about 6 months longer. My mom came home, sat down and made a plan to die. She planned her hospice care, her chosen place of departure, her cremation and her preferred place for the scattering of her ashes. Six months later she died. The day before she died, she went out to eat at Luby's with my little sister, Leslie. When they came home, she put on her pajamas, went to bed, slipped into a coma of sorts and died 24 hours later. I helplessly watched it happen.

It is ORANGE all over

Believe it or not, ORANGE has never been my favorite color unless it was mixed in with some hot pink, turquoise, tan and maybe some lavender. I almost didn't go to school at The University of Texas because the school color was ORANGE! Even though I decided that I was a bigger person than one who would let the school colors rule my education goals, I was ever so thankful when the administration changed the just plain ole orange school color to the infamous BURNT ORANGE. Burnt orange was so much easier on the eyes.

This year my opinion of orange has changed. I see it everywhere I look. As I travel around, I feel like Austin is wrapping it's long orange arms around me, holding me close with the love that has always been there.

Yesterday I traveled from my home in Lakeway into town to share Thanksgiving with a very dear friend of mine. There are only a couple of routes that take us into town, and one of them is RR 2222, or Bull Creek Road as it is known to us old timers. 2222 is an exciting route, similar to a roller coaster ride, I suppose. Up and down the hills, winding round twisting curves that will just take your breathe away, especially if someone else is driving the car. Occasionally you will get a glimpse of the city in one direction and Town Lake in the other direction. However, the most awesome part of the ride is the view of the changing colors of our indigeneous landscape of Live Oaks, Spanish Oaks, River Elms, Chinese Pistash, Sumac, Cedar, and God only knows what else there is that gives us the colors. New England's Autumn has nothing on the Texas Hill country.

I finally made it down to the UT Campus to feel once again the heart throbbing excitement after Texas beats Texas A&M in one of the most famous football rivalries of my lifetime. The view of the Orange Tower just took my breath away...again. It amazes me that some things never change. The landscape changes, the student body changes, but the feel of the campus after that victory is still the same as it was in 1963 when I experienced my first college football victory. The big Orange Tower keeps an ever watchful eye as the huge student body strolls home with a sense of pride to be a part of the University of Texas and yet another football victory.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, my most favorite holiday and time of year, other than my birthday, of course! I pray that you are all well fed, happy, healthy and wealthy of spirit. I feel blessed to have each and everyone of you in my life. God Bless.

Something to consider

From My wise friend Marilyn.


GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD
1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down
there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair
that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask
you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

Insignificant Jobs.

As I have grown into a woman, I have had two invaluable job experiences. One of the jobs was waiting tables. From that little insignificant job, I developed an expertise in dealing with hungry people from large families with insatiable appetites to the single diners with little or no appetite. There is nothing like trying to serve a meal to a large family with several children who know what they want to eat, but that is not what their parents want for them to eat. Then these lovely children proceed to spill their drinks and throw their food all over the place with little regard to the time and effort taken to prepare and serve the meal. They also couldn't care less about the cost and priviledge of eating out. I can remember when I was in my teens and worked as a waitress at the local diner in my small town, I lived in fear of Sundays when the large families would come to eat with us after spending their morning in Church. I knew that by the end of my shift I would be exhausted from serving food and cleaning up the messes of inconsiderate customers. One of the valuable lessons I learned from this experience was that regardless of the fear involved, nothing lasts forever. Everything has it's end and very little of what you fear will kill you. I also learned a lot about feeding children.

The other job I had and believe everyone else should have for at least 3 months of their life is working as an aide in a nursing home. It is an insignificant job, similar to being a waitress, serving and caring for other people, however, nursing homes have a different reality. By a different reality, I mean that most, if not all, of the residents have forgotten most of what their life was all about. They don't remember their family members, they don't remember what they did for a living or if they did anything. Many of them can't even talk. Some are so depressed that they can barely walk from one room to another.

I learned a lot about living life to the fullest while I was working there. I realized that a broken hip in an older person(60 or so) who is not a good health can be a death sentence. I learned that diabetes is deadly. I had heard things before about diabetes like when Mr So&So died from "sugar die beadies"..that is what we called it when we were kids, of course, I never realized the full effect of the dreaded disease. When I was working in the Nursing Home, I met a one legged lady who's leg had just been amputated due to complications from diabetes. She was in the Home because of her depression and immobility. When her children came to visit, she would just sit and stare out the window. She would not leave her room, not even for a stroll around the beautiful atrium. I heard that she died within the year. I am still unsure if she died due to more complications from diabetes or if she just died from sadness.

No Orange Tower at UT

Geez, what can I say except that the No.7 ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders outplayed our No.1 ranked UT Longhorns. Texas Tech set out to win the game at all costs. UT set out to play football. As we all know, there is a huge difference between just playing football for the fun of the game and playing the game with all you heart to win. Tech did just that, they played their hearts out and won the game with an unexpected TD in the last minute of the game, leaving Texas to make a come back with only ONE SECOND left in the game. It left me breathless, speechless, and in total awe. Congratulations to Texas Tech.

Tanner Kyle, who was a team mate of the 2007 Lake Travis State Championship team, is a freshman football scholarship recipient at the University of Montana. Tanner's team, the 6th ranked Montana Grizzlies beat the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks 45-10. I am not sure of their ranking, but I am sure that Mark will fill us in when he returns from his trip to Missoula. Yea, Grizzlies! My friend, Mark Kyle, is Tanner's very proud father.

My favorite little high school football team, the Lake Travis Cavaliers won the District25-4A Championship with a 42-3 victory over Dripping Springs! Both teams went into the game undefeated. Next week LT vs Marble Falls promises to be a stronger, more exciting game for all to enjoy.


In the weeks to come, I am going to try to redirect my attention to more serious matters on aging than just enjoying football and the weather. I am hoping to feature a guest writer. I will have to downplay this until I have a firm commitment from the writer. Keep your fingers crossed. This person is a wealth of information and will be a great contributor to the blog.

Thanks for logging in to enjoy our blog. Until next time, enjoy some of this intoxicatingly pleasant fall weather...with a good wine, of course, and maybe some BBQ before the weather gets too chilly to be outside. OR does that ever happen in Texas?