Medical articles and the internet discuss the “stages” of aging. However, they are in reality learning to endure the unwanted consequences of growing old.  The older we get, the more consequences there are. John Mortimer, the creator of “Rumpole,” died at age 85. He wrote about the indignities of dying: “Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over, and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn’t ready to appear ridiculous.” At age 90, after a very active legal career, I am fully cognizant of the clear changes in my life as I have aged.  I acknowledge that not everyone ages in the same way, but here are ten changes in my life from aging.

1. The  floor has Become a Factor in My Life

The easiest way to describe how dropping things on the floor has become a challenge in my old age is to quote the  comedian, George Burns when he was over ninety years old:  “At my age, things that fall on the floor stay there.” On another occasion he offered: “When something falls on the floor and I bend over to pick it up, I think — as long as I’m down here, I might as well look for something else to do.” Bending over to pick something else has become an effort and an invited risk of falling. Yet, I am dropping and knocking more things than ever on the floor as I have grown older.  As George Burns also once quipped: “At my age, when I drop something, I just look down and say, ‘Well, I guess that’s where you live now.”

2.   When I Am Away From Home There is a Search for Available Toilets

I am taking medication for a heart condition. The unfortunate side effect of this medication is frequent urination. That means having to use a bathroom frequently or suffer the consequences of delay. This need for bathrooms is not limited to people like me taking medication, but is one of the afflictions of old age. As someone has said, “At my age, I don’t pass up a bathroom or a buffet.” However, in addition to finding a toilet, it’s necessary to inspect to see if the need to sit down also permits the ability to stand up after use. Modern toilets are built low to the floor for handicapped use. Without support bars or handicap assistance for getting up, one can be in trouble getting off of the toilet. This is a continuous problem because, as someone has said about being older: “My bladder has a shorter attention span than I do.”

3 .  The End of Personal Dignity

One of the ramifications of being old was the unanticipated impact  on personal dignity. I really wasn’t prepared for women offering to hold the door for me or younger people asking if I would like help crossing the street. Offers of assistance and kindness from people embarrassed me for looking like I needed help. I felt that way until the reality sank in that, in fact, I do need help. It has been correctly said:  “The secret to aging gracefully? Give up on dignity early — it saves time.” Or as someone said, “When you’re young, you lose your keys. When you’re old, you lose your dignity.”  I learned to accept offers of assistance with appreciation and grace. I finally realized I actually needed assistance. I have subsequently learned to be thankful and gracious about offers of help that would have offended me in my younger and stronger days.

4. If I Don’t Write it Down, It’s Gone

As an experienced trial lawyer, I developed the skill of retaining a great deal of information about facts and evidence in my cases. I developed the habit of retraining the information until it was no longer needed. I would then have the ability to replace it with new information about the next case I was involved with.  In my old age, however, my experience has become momentary forgetfulness and memory blanks about names, facts, and information that should be well known to me. Now, my experience is that if I don’t write it down, I will probably forget it. George Burns was fond of saying about old age: “First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next, you forget to pull your zipper up, and finally, you forget to pull it down.”  The names of people, Significant dates, and historical facts that I have known my whole life can somehow be a dark blank in my mind. Thank goodness for my iPhone and Amazon’s Alexia. The phone has become my note list of things to do and the search engine to look up information I should know or need. Amazon Alexia provides me with spelling questions and other facts I can’t remember. Forgetfulness of the names of friends and others I know well is both embarrassing and inconvenient.

As one comedian said, “By the time

You’re 80 years old, you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.”  I used to advise my brain-injured clients to make notes and paste them up in order to help them remember or identify things. I now find myself in their position with notes and project lists, but for a different reason – I’m just old.

5.  I Am Not as Judgmental as I Was in My Younger Years

I am embarrassed to admit in my younger years, I was judgmental about people and their conduct. I saw myself above all of those with issues and problems or whose ideas and conduct I disapproved of. However, as I have aged, I have experienced life regarding issues and problems which now seem to me understandable and forgivable. When you’ve made enough of your own mistakes, it gets harder to condemn someone else’s. I’ve become a  believer in what Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt’s witty daughter, said regarding the judgment of other people: “Ladies may do anything they please, as long as they don’t frighten the horses.” Hard lessons of life have taught me to become tolerant of what other people do and say, so long as it doesn’t injure or harm someone else. As someone pointed out: “Growing older is like turning down the volume on judgment and turning up the volume on understanding.” Pope Francis was asked by reporters during a press conference about his attitude toward gay priests. He responded, “ Who am I to judge? Old age has taught me to ask myself the same question regarding what other people say and do, even if I disagree.

6. People Start Mumbling When You Get Old

One consequence of growing old is that everyone seems to have developed the habit of mumbling and not speaking clearly. My wife insists that the problem has to do with my hearing, but I’m convinced it’s that people don’t speak up loud enough. I remember my friend Robert Habush, a Milwaukee trial lawyer friend of mine, telling me after he got hearing aids:  “I’m surprised people are suddenly speaking clearly since  I bought these hearing aids.”  I’m almost used to watching television or listening to conversations and only getting a percentage of what is being said. Someday I will take the big step and invest in hearing aids but for now I just wish people would stop mumbling

7  .My Medicine Cabinet Looks Like a Pharmacy

Over the years of seeing doctors and aging, the number and variety of prescriptions my doctor has prescribed seem to have excessively expanded. I now have to have a pill container separated by night and day, as well as days of the week to keep track of all the pills I take morning and night. I use a pharmacy with a drive-in window because I seem to go there so often to get the medications. As one older person said, “My pill organizer is the size of a toolbox.” Fortunately, Medicare and my supplemental insurance cover the cost of most of it. However, my medicine tablet is overflowing with bottles of pills I take daily. Keeping track of all of this is a mental challenge, which is probably healthy for my mental health. But I would prefer not to see the pharmacist as often as I see my wife.

8.     .I Am Always Conscious of the Risk if Losing Balance and Falling

One of the nuisances of growing older is the need to be on alert against the risk of falling. It is difficult to adjust to the reality that, from once having good balance and strength to get up unassisted from a chair or the floor, it has now because a physical challenge and even an impossibility. Now, at my age, getting up from a low chair or from the floor without assistance can become an impossibility. This is particularly true because of my physical impairment with my knee replacement joints.  When you know that once you’re on the floor you’re not going to be able to get up without somebody helping, it results in your being apprehensive at all times about the risk of falling and the need to evaluate how low a chair is from the floor. Once you’ve had the experience of falling unexpectedly with no one around to help you get up and not being unable to get up yourself, the threat of recurrence makes you alert to any risk of falling. As one older person observed, “Falling isn’t what scares me. It’s the fact that it takes three people and a small crane to get me standing again.”

9.  Say Goodbye to Independence

One of the most difficult transitions mentally from growing old is accepting the inevitability of the inevitable loss of personal independence. The loss of control and the need for help from friends and others is a challenges.  When you’re old, you need other people’s help in a variety of circumstances. At first, you’re reluctant to ask for help, and you try to do it yourself. But when that proves to be more than difficult, you learn to accept the fact that you need help in your daily life activities. It has been said that you spend your youth wanting freedom, and your later years learning to accept care. Probably the most painful and difficult aspect of this transition is when you are faced with the fact that you no longer should or can drive a car.  Not being able to get in the car and go somewhere means that you are dependent upon friends or commercial transportation. The loss of freedom to be able to drive somewhere when you want is more than an inconvenience. It is a stark reality of the fact that you have lost a significant ability to be independent. A car is a symbol of freedom and independence. It’s been observed that one of the hardest parts of growing older isn’t the physical and mental issues but s letting someone else drive.

10.   Keep in Contact with Your Friends Because They Keep Dying

One of the realities of being old is that you begin to realize that you and long-term acquaintances are dying. The number of your friends and acquaintances begins to dwindle until you realize that you have only a few longtime ones left. Mark Twain said, “I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.” But the fact is that as you age, you find yourself with a growing list of deceased friends and acquaintances.  This should be a motivation to continue to make friends as you age because life is uncertain, and having friends is an essential part of survival with age.

Conclusion

It’s been correctly noted that: “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely, in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘Holy Crap, what a ride!”