Page 7 - Boca ViewPointe - November '24

November 2024 Viewpointe, Page 7
The Trials And Triumphs Of Old Age

By Robert W. Goldfarb mats in my bathroom could slide and cause me to fall. Another complaining “It’s far, too much traffic, too difficult to find
asked me to stop driving at night. They do this out of loving a parking space, too crowded.”
As I approach my 95th birthday, old age affects me as concern, not to switch our roles as parent and child. But, I intend to keep opening windows that look onto
though I were two entirely different people. One of me has that loving concern is one more signal that I’m not nearly as opportunities old age might offer. I find the word wisdom a
little control over his life. My arthritis flares despite routine robust as I was just a few years ago. bit pretentious but if it is to grace my life it would be now at
visits to a physical therapist. The heart that powered me My body bears all the signs of old age. I see that 95 or never. I speak often and at length with my grandchildren
through ten marathons now beats irregularly. Medication decline even more intimately than my children do. But this but find it is their wisdom that makes it possible for me to
bottles leave no room for toothpaste in my medicine cabinet. physical decline has had an equal and opposite effect on me navigate the world we both live in.
I could run up stairs three years ago faster than I can rise from emotionally. I’m determined to push through the obstacles I do accept that all I’ve learned over a very long life might
a chair today. I frequently need time to respond to questions on the ground and in my mind that litter the path ahead. be called wisdom. But I tend to offer that wisdom to myself.
I once answered before the question left the air. I have no interest in living to one hundred or to being I reach for it when I find myself drifting rather than striding
The other me seems to have a voice in the way I’m making lauded as a fitness icon, a “superager.” I do want to with purpose into old age. I ask myself--often aloud--why
my way deeper into old age. I write articles about aging that eliminate attitudes and behavior that cause my mind to are you seeing change as a problem when it could be an
are published and generate comments, most of them gracious. slump as my body has. I do the obvious; I exercise, I follow opportunity? I’ve begun re-reading Cicero, Marcus Aurelius
I’m by far the oldest runner in the three-mile races I enter. a Mediterranean diet, I sleep seven or eight hours a night, I and other Stoic philosophers along with Old Testament
I work hard to change behavior that defined me for most of subscribe to Harvard Medical School publications that nag Prophets, hoping their wisdom will add light to the humble
my life but is unseemly at my age. I’ve managed to soften me more than inform me. Much harder is finding a way to glimmer of mine.
the once-sharp bite of my competitiveness. I’m quicker to make the personal, the internal, changes that give me some I sometime feel old age is a room lit only by the spirit that
say yes to invitations most friends my age reject as requiring voice in this act of growing old. glows within me. I’m the one who must carry the lamp that
too much effort, like flying across the country to visit my I know I’m an old man, but choose to be an old man reveals the path I have yet to walk. It’s very likely I’ll stumble
great-grandchildren. who dreams of what might be if I live these years with and fall along the way as most of the elderly do, but intend never
I know I have virtually no control over my gradual joy, with inspiration, with purpose. I avoid behavior that to lose the passion that drives me forward along that road.
physical decline. One of my daughters just warned me the makes me feel old, like seeing possibilities as problems,
Bob’s articles have appeared in The New York Times,
Community Association Meetings Monthly Schedule The San Francisco Chronicle and in Next Avenue, the
publication of the Public Broadcasting Service. His book,
(All meetings held via Zoom and in person.) “What’s Stopping Me From Getting Ahead?” was published
by McGraw Hill and is in five languages. 

All meetings will be held electronically via Zoom and in person. The following is our regular
schedule of monthly meetings, however, sometimes meetings are cancelled or schedules are Hot Topics
revised due to holidays, etc. If you would like to attend, please call the BPCA office, (561)
395-7551, the day before the meeting to request the Zoom link be emailed to you. Group Notice

Access Control & Safety Committee TBD
We are a women’s group who remember Reva
Architectural Control Site Committee TBD Tucker. Hot Topics has resumed meetings every Friday
and are seeking new members. Please join us for lively
Board of Directors 3rd Tuesday of each month at 9:30 a.m. discussions at 11:00am to 12:30pm at the Boca Pointe
Community Office. If you would like more information
Budget & Finance Committee TBD or to sign up, please call 561-715-8298. 

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