Elderly Gender Parity

When we were young, who knew? Certainly not us. Fact is no one imagines, when they're young, what life has in store for them as they mature and mature and finally join the ranks of the elderly. Golden years they may be, and we hail them as such, but they also offer us gifts, had we the choice, we would gently refuse to accept.

Think of failing eyesight and the frustration of fine print. Think of the facility of hearing somewhat diminished. Think of the alacrity and elasticity of youth long gone. Think of the bloom of youth, gleaming young skin, casually worn then finally dreadfully missed. Think of youth and how one felt gazing upon the grizzled visage of an elder. Something akin to pity, bordering on revulsion.

Think of the shock of recognition, long past the slide into middle-age, when glancing casually at a mirror your parents' faces look back at you. When did that happen? Think of your children now at an age when you first began to discover grey hairs among the vigorous dark growth of life.

So here we are at 70 years of age, after more than 50 years of marital bliss. And bliss, a silly word at that, it has certainly been. Each of us has faced a gradual decline in our physical selves as muscles decline in strength and time ushers us into a closed future.

At night, in bed together we find comfort in each other's presence, touch, love. And, at night, in bed, we each of us for our separate reasons wake repeatedly. Not because we fear that long sleep that many identify as the final sleep, but because our well-used bodies' still-powerful hormones bid us to.

With him, it's the urgency of his bladder. Because of his enlarged prostate, grown to the state where it interrupts its neighbouring organ. During the day, sudden urgent impulses to urinate interrupt and often disrupt normal activities. Throughout the night those same urgent needs waken him continually.

As they do me, his constant companion, awakening as he raises himself from our warm bed to toddle along to the bathroom. We share this discomfiture unequally to be sure, but we do share it. For my part there are the still-lingering effects of menopause that simply refuse to abate completely.

From a sound sleep I am abruptly awakened by that most peculiar sensation of my body flooding with an insane heat which washes over me post that peculiar tingling of my body, so utterly unpleasant and unstoppable. Small, unpleasant interruptions in our daily lives.

So how did you sleep last night?