The older I get the more I think about life trying to understand it all.

Here are some thoughts to ponder:

We who are OLD know that AGE is more than a disability.

It is an intense and varied experience, almost beyond our ability to handle at times.

–Being OLD I feel at odds with and different from the times, and it is confusing and frustrating. Almost like the current times are NOT for old people!

–When we are OLD we withdraw from the active world, BUT strangely, we are more ALERT to it than ever before.

–OLD people have so little personal life that the impact of the impersonal is huge.

Some of us feel like sounding boards, observing, reading; the outside world startles us and we ask: Where will it all lead? What effect will it have on people? How different will they become?

–At night when I lay on my back in bed I think about my problems and in doing so I endure many sleepless hours. The problems go deep into my solar plexus where I manifest my emotions.

–OLD people are NOT protected from life by engagements, pleasures or duties; we are open to our own feelings and perceptions. Our one safety is to draw in and enjoy the present, the simple and the immediate. It may be dull and restricted, but it can be satisfying within our own world.

–Being OLD I do more observing of others, but I only EXPERIENCE MYSELF.

–Disabilities crowd in on the OLD; real pain is there, and if we have to be falsely cheerful, it is part of our ISOLATION.

–We OLD people are short tempered because we suffer so. Little things become big, nothing works well, our bodies have become unreliable. We keep one eye on death, is it a return to nothingness? We’re uncertain, so Enjoy the Day.

–When a new ache and pain arrives I look about to see if death has come and I say: “Death is that you? Are you there?” So far the pain has answered, “Don’t be silly, it’s only ME,”

–Our task is BALANCE, keeping just well enough, just brave enough, just gay and interested enough to remain a sentient person. Sentient means able to perceive and feel things and think straight.

–This morning when I woke, I knew I had a fair night, that my pains were NOT too bad. I pulled back the curtain and see the sky and I say: “My dear, dear day, it’s great to be ALIVE.”

–Age is a desert of time–hours, days, weeks, perhaps years–with little to do! So I have ample time to face everything I have had, been and done. Gather them all in, the things that came from outside and those from inside. We have time, at last, to make them truly ours by reflecting on them.

–Loved ones lost opens the gates on suffering. The pain of losing a loved one is terrible! In parting you feel impoverishment. Then suffer–it is all one can do. How can I carry it? But I must. But I cannot just suffer, so I grope for a way of dealing with it, how to grasp it, searching for any insight that might help.

–Our sorrows are a burden for us and others. If it were possible, it might be better to show nothing, but this is unreal and inhuman. You express sorrow to get rid of a little of it. After a while others say: “Better today? Good, alright now?” You must answer, ” Alright, thank you.” You must accept your burden and be pleasant.

–Hardihood is a quality created by hardship and difficulty. It’s a stimulating virtue. Some people are disciplined by hardship. I admire people who can take what comes to them.

–Sometimes I tell people: “You have neat, tight expectations of what life ought to give you, but you won’t get it!” Life doesn’t accommodate you, it shatters you! Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition. But some don’t pay attention so they shatter themselves by their ignorance of life.

–Sometimes I think badly of life and this mortifies me. What do I know? How dare I judge? Life is cruel and kind. I didn’t like the bad things that have happened to me but I know I needed them to make me STRONG! So, is hardship justified if you learn from it? NO! There is too much of it in life, hardship that is. But life has to be hard at times to have any effect on us; even now we hardly notice it. We take it for granted!

–When we get sick we don’t want to die, but on second thought, I’ve had good innings. Now each day is a gift. An extra day in which I may gain some understanding of life, see beauty, feel love. But all this is the perception and feeling by which I SURVIVE.

–When OLD you live like a watchful ghost. You need NOT plan holidays because you can’t take them. You are past all action, all decision. The OLD are almost FREE, our lives are empty and sometimes this is elevating. We only have our thoughts for company. You wait in silence and listen to the emptiness.

–No matter what Old Age brings, you still want to travel on the ROCKY ROAD OF LIFE!