Frustration!

GEEEEEEZ-LEWEEEZ!

I'm frustrated today. I'm such a poor techy! Mostly I can get along quite well using my computer. . .if I proceed carefully. But today I got careless. A box popped up in the middle of an email I was writing. It suggested I take advantage of a new Firefox update. . .blahBLAHblah.

Soooo! I DID! Then sent my email and shut down.

Of course, the result was that I lost all my quick-links. And the next time I tried to get to my email, I couldn't get to it by my old route. Worse than that, I wasn't immediately smart enough to get to my email at all. Talk about frustration! When you need them, there's nothing like KNOWLEDGE and PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS. And PATIENCE. The older I get, the more set in my ways I become, the less of these three qualities I seem to have.

Just as my blood-pressure passed through 500-over-100 my daughter walked into my office and saved my life. . .or at least my sanity. She simply entered a new bookmark for me. So I now have a new short-route into my email. . .IF I can remember it. I will, of course. But OF COURSE, I'll resent the need to break old habits and do something old in a new way. Imagine the difficulties I'm having thinking new thoughts and doing new things.

Stuff like this not only makes me crazy, it alerts me to a truth I have difficulty accepting: I'm aging rapidly. I'm getting progressively more rigid in my habits. Far worse than that, this rigidity is developing long tentacles into my thinking processes. It's bad enough I'm having increasing difficulty disciplining and maintaining my aging body. But I'm becoming increasingly aware that my mind is also getting lazy. It discourages me to realize I don't wanna think beyond the old and familiar parameters of my mind. I don't wanna recognize and solve problems. A serious handicap when one realizes I'm old and continuously aging.

All is NOT lost. I haven't quite given up yet. What frightens me is the thought that I may soon give up entertaining new things and new ways entirely.

On the other hand, this growing rigidity is good for a number of reasons. For instance, for most of my life I've disciplined my body in what I think are good ways. I exercise vigorously every day. I stretch, do yoga and strengthening exercises every day. I use a weight machine and a Total Body machine. I work hard, fighting the deterioration that naturally comes as age progresses. I press 50 pounds at least 100 times a day. I do a wide variety of upper and lower body strengthening exercises. I take long walks at least five days a week. These walks are vigorous. . .as long as two hours out, two hours back, but rarely less than an hour out, an hour back. I often carry a small guide-book on local flora, so I can study the plants around my home as I walk. Spring is an especially interesting season, because I enjoy watching plants develop as the season progresses.

I read less than I once did. Instead of a steady diet of interesting nonfiction, I've lately returned to reading poetry -- an old love related to my long-ago career as an English teacher. I've always loved reading and reciting poetry. To discipline my mind, I've formed the habit of committing to memory at least one poem every two weeks. It's a time-consuming pass-time, because my trove of poems has increased. I have to sit down several times a week and quietly perform recitations, lest my many poems slip away. At some point, I suppose I'll discover that as I master a new poem, an old one may slip away. But that hasn't happened yet.

I suppose the worst part of aging is this disciplined personal struggle to manage my life in creative ways. I fight to maintain my body and mind through various forms of discipline. The more I do this, the more time it takes, the more isolated I become. And while a disciplined life is worthwhile, it's difficult and challenging. And frankly, it's not nearly as much fun as the life I so much enjoyed during my younger years.

I loved my old young life. I adored my wife. Since her death nearly five years ago, I've had to find new reasons to go on living a life I find much less satisfying. Still, we only live once. We only age once. We have only this one time to confront the challenges that test us.

I miss loving someone special. I love my children and grandchildren. But that sort of loving is not entirely fulfilling. I loved my work. But that too is gone. I need some form of new work that represents new and exciting challenges. Truthfully, what I miss most of all is loving my wife. Loving Nancy as I did, was clearly the most fulfilling aspect of my long life. And while it's easy enough to say I should find another woman to love, women within my age range are either attached or dead. Or they prefer to remain unattached. . .at least unattached from me. Every once in a great while I see an unattached and attractive woman. But she apparently does not see me. Don't think I mean by attractive merely a good-looking woman. Women are attractive for a host of legitimate reasons.

Unattached, attractive women aside, I think I'M the problem. The truth is I need to find new ways to grow. We either grow or expire. Simple as that.

Last week I ran across and mastered a poem that speaks to this issue. This Charles Kingsley poem is entitled "Young and Old." And it goes something like this:

When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green,
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among;
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.

The eight-line second verse troubles me. I don't like the advice. All the world is NOT old and aging. I am. If I've let things become stale, that's the first problem I have to solve. I should require of myself that I keep life fresh and new. My "wheels" may run down. But my mind is renewable. I'm determined I won't "creep" anywhere. I'm neither spent nor maimed. I can still stand tall. I grant the last two lines: with a little luck and some personal discipline I may still find a woman to love.

That's up to me!

Aging or not, I want more of what I've enjoyed.
Sadly or proudly: I may be too stubborn to settle for less.