Bill’s Senior Moments: Help! I’m Almost a Senior!
Observations about Aging and Senior Living by an Aspiring Curmudgeon
By Bill Hull, Director of Marketing
This year I will turn sixty…that’s SIX- ZERO. I don’t know why this elicits a cry for help from deep within. I’m not really drowning in the middle of a cold, gray sea. I’m not on a conveyor belt moving ever closer to the edge of a bottomless abyss. I’m not aboard the Voyager deep space probe speeding ever further away from our beautiful blue planet. I’m actually doing just fine.
I’m not certain I would slow the clock or freeze my life at 59 even if I could. Sure, ten years ago I had a different perspective. I had arrived at a movie theater early and shuffled up to the ticket counter. Without a second of hesitancy or even a blink of apology, the window monkey (that’s what I called him: the window monkey) automatically extended to me the senior discount. Me? I was indignant and offended. Now, the constant flow of change and movement has swept away some of that denial. Still, the notion of soon being a senior is daunting. My mom is 86. Now, she is a senior. My sister is nearly 65…another senior. I am facing the ambivalent reality that my senior moments are just ahead. It has been nearly seventeen years since I threw my hat, and limited skills, into the senior living sales ring. At the time it seemed like a simple, if chaotic, three-ring circus where I could create my own little magic act and make extra money appear. I enjoy professional sales and thought I could easily understand and serve the needs of seniors. I am still friends with two of my colleagues from those early days, and we talk about our shared lack of self-awareness to believe that this would simply stay a job. I never expected this to turn into a life’s calling; that I would grow to love and respect amazing seniors who surprise me nearly every day; and that my life would be challenged, changed and enriched far beyond any material blessing. Now, pretty soon, I will add “personal experience” to my list of qualifications to relate to seniors.
So I have decided that with 60 on the way, I think I would like to do my best to become a certified curmudgeon. The dictionary version of a curmudgeon is “a person (especially an old man) who is crusty, easily annoyed or angered, and who often complains.” In my career, I have known dozens and dozens of curmudgeons. Maybe it’s strange, but some are my favorites. If you are a curmudgeon, I would love to get your comments, advice, and recommendations. It would be great to become a curmudgeon for a number of reasons: First, it seems like almost all of the curmudgeons I know have made significant, positive contributions in one way or another and they have a well-hidden kindness down deep inside. Second, curmudgeons have no problems expressing exactly how they feel. They live as if they have nothing to lose in terms of emotional capital. That could be fun. Finally, I am fairly sure that, all things being equal, I am well on my way to achieving this category even if I do nothing else to earn it. Who knows? maybe a curmudgeon is actually a guy exactly like me who is just a few decades ahead.
So forget your help, I’m ready for 60 (curmudgeon practice). At least I am well on my way. It’s the present tense with its new challenges and joys that we all learn to embrace. There are the necessary losses, disappointments and doubts that seem always to come along for the ride. Or maybe we’ve been through enough to stop sweating the small stuff. Things change. We grow and grieve; we serve and struggle; we love and learn. We are our own reminders that some things do get better with time.
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