Grow Old Along with Me-Oh, Come On, It’ll be Fun, Maybe, Probably

As I, um, mature, I find that it takes longer to recover from, well, everything. After a big weekend or a few days of having company, I used to need a couple of days to get back to normal. Now, it takes much, much, much longer. And I don’t always realize how long it takes until I wake up one morning, days later, and realize that I feel better, physically, and mentally. So, I expected to need significant down time after the big Thanksgiving to-do.

I love this plant. It came from Wal-Mart. Not only has it survived for several months, it seems to *like* living in the bathroom! Every now and then, a new leaf comes sprouting out from the center of the main plant. Or, sometimes the little offshoot plants produce a new leaf.

It was several days of extra people in the house, extra people in town, lots of cooking, visiting, organizing. I had been working for weeks, cooking ahead, cleaning, planning, planing, planning-meals, events, details. It was wonderful fun and worth every bit of work, energy, and preparation. Then, after everyone was gone, putting things back to rights, laundry, leftover food, all those other things left undone. I tried to do my part in the recovery. I went to bed early some nights. I napped some afternoons. I tried to take it easy for several days. And it’s not just my body that has to recover, it’s my brain, too. I need days to feel normal again. In the midst of that most recent, post-event time, my toothbrush disappeared.

My bathroom is pretty small. The counter is small. There just are not that many places that a missing toothbrush can go. I scanned the medicine cabinet, where the toothbrush is supposed to be. Not there. I looked at the two by two foot counter space, and underneath whatever was there at the time (a tissue, a book, a credit card receipt–any number of things might be on the counter). Not there.

A plant sits in the corner, right beneath the medicine cabinet. Things I drop (various pills, pill bottles, the toothpaste tube) often end up behind it. I pulled the plant away from the corner. Not there. I moved the little wooden jewelry box that’s against the wall. Not there. Where could the toothbrush have gone?

Ohhhhh.

A little while after I had replaced my AWOL green toothbrush with an orange one, I noticed (in an awww moment) another new leaf sprouting from the center of the nice bathroom plant. Cute, huh. Now, to explain completely, so you don’t miss this, the plant that I physically moved to see if my toothbrush was behind it, is the same plant into which my toothbrush had fallen, bristles down, and I didn’t notice for days! And when I did see it, I thought it was a new leaf. Really.

To make things worse, While the toothbrush was missing, I also lost my hairbrush. WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME!!

Part of moving into senior adulthood includes worries about how our brains are working. My mother’s mother began to show signs of dementia when she was just 62. So, it’s rather close to home, that worry about our minds. Several years ago, my mother’s older sister phoned her one day, panicked.
“Oh Janie!” she wailed. “It’s happening! I can’t find my keys!”
Mother comforted her with calm assurance and some facts of life.
“Olive, you have never been able to keep up with your keys. I’m sure you’re fine.”
And, she was fine.

I read somewhere that the problem isn’t when you’ve misplaced your keys. It’s when you can’t remember what your keys are for. So, I suppose I shouldn’t have worried so much about misplacing the toothbrush and the hairbrush, both at the same time. It’s just so frustrating.

You can see how a hairbrush might go missing on my desk.

Anyway, I have other hairbrushes (that I don’t like as much), that I used for a few days. Then, as part of getting things back to well-running (or at least better-running) I cleaned off the stuff that had accumulated on my desk after all the company. Bills, mail that needed a response, a mug with tea dregs in the bottom, a glass that had had tea in it, and, aha, my hairbrush. I suppose I was brushing my hair, maybe getting ready to leave the house, and went in to find something on the computer (directions, a list, checking mail, I don’t know), but I guess I put down the brush, did what ever work I needed to do and said, oh, my it’s time to go and went off leaving the brush behind. It didn’t take long to get covered back there behind the computer. And there it sat.

I feel bad that I don’t see well enough to notice a toothbrush standing upright inside a plant, or that I can’t recall what I was doing with my hairbrush. But, frankly, I’m just relieved that they showed up. Robert Browning said, “Grow old along with me. The best is yet to be.” Maybe he had some employed people to help him keep up with the minutiae of his life. If you can consider something as important as a toothbrush to be minutiae.

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

2 Corinthians 4:16 (NASB)

None of my “outer” parts work the way they’re supposed to. Well, I think my liver’s all right. But that’s it. Everything else is on the “needs help” list. But things are going pretty well, for the most part, if you’re not really in a hurry. I’m comforted to know that, as quickly as the decay seems to be happening, there’s some renewing going on, too, and maybe just as vigorously.