maintenance in your sixties

The maintenance plan. I remember someone in the one percent was quoted as saying: “It is easy to make money. It is a lot harder to maintain it.” Maintenance for me feels like the kiss of death. It means I am no longer innovating. I am spending all my time and energy and money just trying to hold on.

I am trying to maintain my health. I never knew we had so many body parts. I never knew there were so many doctors. More than half the contacts I have in all my devices are under the letter “D” for doctor. There is the allergist and audiologist. The breast specialist . The chiropractor and cardiologist. The dentist and dermatologist. The endocrinologist and the ENT specialist. There is the foot doctor AKA podiatrist. The gastroenterologist and gynecologist. The hematologist. The internist. The jaw specialist for TMJ. Lab Core. The mental health specialist. The neurologist. The orthopedist and ophthalmologist and oncologist. The physical therapist, the psychologist, the pulmonologist, the pharmacist and the podiatrist AKA the foot specialist. There is Quest Lab. There is the radiologist for mammograms and sonograms. There is the therapist. The urologist. The visiting nurse for when we come home from surgery and the veterinarian if I get another kitten to replace my Tigger. And the X-ray technicians for plain old X-rays.

Have I left anyone out? Each one is a specialist. But I am one whole person and no one seems to know it. The podiatrist is not the back doctor. Yet, because of my feet, I have poor posture. The hand doctor is not the neurologist. Yet I have tingles and numbness in my fingers. Is it a pinched nerve in my back? Is it carpal tunnel syndrome? The cancer specialist is not the cardiologist. Who will approve of the herbal supplement I have decided to take to ward off melanoma from returning? Who is running this job? I cannot be my own GC!

ARE YOU HAVING TROUBLE BEING ON TOP OF ALL THE DOCTORS? HAVE YOU EVER FORGOTTEN TO GET A TEST YOUR DOCTOR TOLD YOU TO GET? DO YOU LONG FOR ONE DOCTOR WHO GETS THE WHOLE PICTURE? DO YOU FEEL LIKE BODY PARTS IN A HEAP?

We go up to the hotel suite. I tiptoe around the coffee table/ottoman. I don’t remember exactly when women friends stopped complimenting me and started complimenting my outfits. But it is different when someone says: “I can’t get over how well that necklace goes with your outfit,” instead of: “You look so good today.”

My girlfriend, Shelley, had been a high powered CPA. She had to dress for work. She dreamed of the day she would shop at Walmart and Target. Shelley, I want to call out to the heavens, when you get to be this age, you simply CANNOT buy clothes at Target or Walmart. You need the most expensive clothes you can possibly afford to pay off on credit. Your only hope is to wear a two-hundred dollar long sweater that covers but drapes just so over those one-hundred and fifty dollar skinny jeans that stretch so that you are the only one who knows how they fit over all your lumps and bumps.

What you don’t need anymore, is the jewelry!!! Just when you have the time to bother putting on the necklaces and rings, bracelets and earrings, your fingers cannot manipulate those little hooks. You need help, and if you are lucky, your spouse is kind enough to go traipsing all over the house to find one of his many pairs of reading glasses, so that he can try to open the clasp and close it before the delicate chain slips through his fingers.

(Which is why I bought the shoes and not the jewelry!)

But, Shelley, what you simply must have – are scarves! Colorful scarves that go around your neck to help distract from the washed out, beat up, faded look that you wear on your face under all the creams and make up. Colorful scarves to divert attention away from the tired look in your eye that tells everyone you are past your prime and that you are on the maintenance plan.

Do you know what I mean by the maintenance plan? “Listen” to me rant and rave about the maintenance plan tomorrow!!!!!

randomthoughtsfromthe60s

aging – kicking and screaming

The doctors

Dressing for the 60s