Reflections from the Slippery Slope

Slippery Slope symptoms...

No definitive chronological age signals your personal arrival at the Slippery Slope. There could be physical symptoms like a serious knee twinge requiring a replacement, curious chest pressure leading to a stent or two, fuzzy film covering your eyes repaired by cataract surgery, enduring endless mumbling in conversations resulting in $5000 hearing aids.

The knee comes out good as new, your heart adapts to the stent, your vision astoundingly clears, and you can hear the birds chirp again.

Even so, wake up, you have arrived! You are on the precipice of the Slippery Slope, causing your alertness quotient to shoot up. What next? Redd Foxx and his “Big One”? A lump in the breast? Glucose count ramping out of sight? Falling down? Not getting up? Can I adapt to this next malady? What can be fixed by the docs? Will my slide be slow and easy or hard and fast?

I want to be a gracious, realistic, and positive member of The Slippery Slope Slide Club. But I hate it. I want to run marathons and play pickleball and climb mountains and ride my bike like I always did. I can still ride my bike (ha)—-it’s electric, but the rest of those activities are forever gone at age 76. Physical losses due to aging should be no surprise, but when they do come to pass, it is shocking. One day I got on the floor and getting up seemed to take several minutes of struggle. When the hell did that happen?

The Slippery Slope both creeps up unnoticed but will also smack you viciously in the face. I did not know I was losing vestibular function until I noticed walking at night made me nauseous. A creep up. My knee got more arthritic until it worked no more. Another creep up. I am alertly awaiting and dreading the smack. It will come. It comes to everyone. Like my dad said more than once, “I wonder how I’m going out of here?”

I can worry. I can dread the next slide downward. Or I can live hard and deep and grateful. I can scream in anguish. Or I can go gently, thoughtfully and in full awareness.

“Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing. And gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning and sang”. ——Mary Oliver