Life Goes On

My friend Ron, who is 90 but looks and acts 70, said when I bemoaned turning 80, "Don't worry, the eighties are a piece of cake!" Well I don't know what kind of cake he meant, but for me it's been a total since that milestone birthday one month ago. My back constantly hurts, I pulled my shoulder somehow, and I'm more fatigued than ever despite getting to bed earlier and earlier. But what happened today was the worst so far.

I had gone out to do some errands and was gone about 45 minutes. Arriving back home, I was stunned to see my front door wide open. It wasn't just ajar, it was as open as it could be. I was certain I had closed it behind me when I left, being paranoid about break-ins from 30 years of living in crime-ridden Washington, D.C.

After checking with my husband and son to see if either one had come in during my absence and left the door open --they hadn't -- I undertook a full-scale search of the premises, fearing I was about to be murdered by some intruder hiding in a closet. I found none.

My call to my son was disheartening, though. He recounted an article he recently read suggesting that aging does not happen gradually, but in three distinct spurts: after age 34, then after age 60, and finally after age 78. So I am now an old coot who leaves doors open without knowing it. I wonder, does plastic surgery help that or is Jane Fonda, at age 88, also batty?