Life Transitions

Time flies, they say. One minute you are young and vigorous getting things done and the next minute you are wondering if 2:00 pm is too late to take a nap, since you are usually in bed by 6:00.

I started this Substack almost a year ago, hard to believe. I struggle to wrap my brain around the passage of eleven years I blogged in bagsallpacked.blospot.com. I switched only because I thought I needed a different perspective/focus like one specifically from an old person's POV.  Truth is I had no other place, that I was aware of, to speak about such things as how it feels to experience late life transitions when the only audience is going through things I have almost forgotten. Like menopause and empty nest. No one going through a midlife experience wants to hear from an old lady that it will be okay, that she lived it and got to the other side with new energy.

Maybe the problem is me not being sympathetic enough. I am basically stoic by nature. I did it so can you! might not be the best approach. Regardless, I did not feel at home in the mid-life forums. I definitely did not fit where forty something parents gathered to commiserate and compare notes. Antiquated POV is akin to being an unknown foreign language.

Anyway, I figured I could toss things out in my own space and if someone stumbled on it and got something from it, well, good enough.

The thing about major life transitions is that they are ongoing and relentless but necessary. They start in the first year of life which we who have mothered children were amazed and delighted to watch. As we marvel at our kids going from helpless infants to independent adults, we don't notice that we also change as well. But this is life. I always think of it as a circle rather than linear. It is repeating for sure.

So, all this is to say, I think I am moving through another change because I realized how many things I once thought mattered just don't anymore. Like decorating for holidays and seasons. Or cooking big meals, including a meat, a starch and vegetable. It suddenly occurred to me I can have ice cream for dinner and it just doesn't matter.

This new phasing out of one life stage and into the next, most especially in the retirement age stage has given me pause to reflect more on what I need, not what I think I want. One thing to note is that those on the younger side looking forward and planning for retirement rarely understand that you can't usually understand what you will need from your younger perspective. Downsizing is not just referring to housing. It also includes paraphernalia and routines. A teenager can't possibly know a middle-ager perspective even as a middle-ager can't know an elder attitude. You have to live it.

If you have gotten this far in the essay, I can offer that you will want/need SIMPLE as your guideline. For example I don't need complex devises and appliances. I am sure whoever designed the multi-option dishwasher in our new lake house was too young to understand the basic science of dishwashing. Why is the first option a 2 hour and 29 minute wash cycle? Really? But wait, if you push the 'energy saver' button it increases to 2 hours and 53 minutes. Makes. No. Sense. In contrast, the old dishwasher in our last lake house had a dial you moved to 'start' then a lever that you moved from left to right. Boom! Less than an hour later the dishes were shiny clean. Imagine that - old simple technology still getting the job done. Of course. washing the dishes by hand would take less time but let's not quibble that point.

Then, let's talk about the washing machine and dryer in the new lake house that has two dozen options compared to the small stack washer/dryer in the old lake house that you lift the lid, put your clothes in, toss in a detergent pod, close the lid and push the button. Then, 40 minutes later you take the clean clothes out and put them in the dryer above, close the door and push the button. Clean is clean. Right?

Here's a secret - old folks don't have as much laundry as they did when they had a houseful of family. Plus they might wear the same clothes several days in a row - how I know that is unimportant.

So, if we are going to zero in via antique POV, going backwards from unimaginable complexity to basic simplicity, allow me to tell you how I got around the very complex oven at the new lake house. First, I don't use it. I bought a toaster oven that is also an air fryer.  I don't need an oven. I can bake a cake or brownies, air fry some fries or make cheese toast for breakfast in a small compact appliance.  SIMPLE!

So the point would be - since at this stage of my life I don't cook big meals anymore I don't need appliances that have dozens of options displayed in tiny pale hieroglyphics on stainless steel that you can't even see with a magnifying glass.

We walk through this life, on our path, collecting things we are conditioned to believe we will always require to live comfortably. Commerce and advertising may have an influence in this. But then, one day, in a moment of epiphany, we realize we don't need most of those things anymore and we understand that getting old is not just a rite of passage like learning how to crawl and then walk. We gain a new kind of freedom as we let go of the things we thought we owned but in reality owned us.

There's a downside and upside to every stage of life but each and every stage has a reason for being and learning how to accept this reality makes the transitions a bit smoother.