Outside the four walls.

 Subject: Outside the four walls.



I’m parked outside the dentist. Last week I had had a dry run coming a week early and no its not dementia but a life long revolution of being late for meetings in a world now made meaningless with regards time, with so few meetings.

That’s not wholly true of course since the world around hasn’t altered and the things I busied myself with, mainly work, is no more although the neighbourhood still stands. A painful ankle and weakening leg muscles make the walk unpleasant but I still enjoy driving, even the 220 mile trip to Swansea is still within my grasp (or at least I tell myself it is) but somehow the  impulse of ‘dropping in’ is frowned upon for some reason and with Marie now here in Bishops Stortford I don’t have the excuse any more. People think journeys have to be planned down to the last detail but I was always prepared to “wing it”.  Clothes you could buy, food and drink obviously, as you sat in your car happy unencumbered, the ultimate coping mechanism is in your head and hopefully, in your wallet. Schedules, are a metal encumbrance, the assumption was, “that people should be glad to see me” but I’m slowly learning, after 83 years that’s not necessarily the case. If you carry around a hopeful aura that they would be as happy to see you as you are them and it can lead to embarrassment. For a start you are crossing into their territory and some people can be very judgemental, especially of their image which they might want to maintain is a reflection of the fact that perhaps the dishes aren’t clean or the house vacuumed. The pleasure of driving my old (1948) 940 Volvo Classic far outweighs lacking a specific destination, the involvement of travel is enough, it takes you back to when you were competent and all destinations were full of promise. When companies anticipated your arrival and the skills you brought. You were that important link offering something they couldn’t or wouldn’t do, you were someone who could solve some of their problems and they had confidence you.

One of the problems of aging is that people lose the confidence that you can bring to the party something valuable.  They did it sadly with Joe Biden, forgetting the instinctive value he had brought, through his long experience.

So he takes a little longer to go up and down the steps, but it’s what happens but it’s what you do when you get there that’s important. We are all prejudiced towards the aged, there’s  a mixture of a benign feeling towards the old, mixed with impatience and the fear that eventually you yourself will become pretty much like Joe, at least physically.

From the perspective of a son or daughter, the fear that there will be little they can do to help, a little shopping perhaps, some tech problem solved, a hand to hold when sick but your fear that you will be in fact powerless and eventually submerged by the cost of care is frightening.

From each side, as the oldie continues to drop the baton, you eventually tire of picking it up.