Aging when you are alone

This is a bad one. I haven’t had one this hard in awhile. I am overcome with a combination of fear and what feels, well, more like grief than anxiety, it’s hard to explain.

It is this bad, I took a pill this morning, a pill I don’t take anymore but have for emergencies. This morning I took the pill. This won’t happen often, but this morning I am having trouble holding on.

When I woke up early I felt anxious, couldn’t go back to sleep, got up and went outside with the dogs. Came in, fed them, cleaned out Canela’s papers, the darling elderly amazon parrot I am babysitting for my friend Noni. I made her breakfast and fed her. Made coffee, sat down here and just felt like I was going to lose it. The tears came. They won’t stop for some reason.

I reached out. I texted 3 people. One texted me back. Finally my daughter just did but she is out doing an important errand, I didn’t want her to know, I didn’t say anything, she will call me in a little while. People are busy and I don’t want to bother anyone.

I am scared. I am so scared.

Partly this is due to a fact that has a lot to do with being older and not having help easily when things go wrong and feeling very vulnerable and afraid. You see my very sweet neighbor across the street, a young man and his wife and baby, have been so good to me. He said I could call on him anytime. I have never called on him almost ever at all but he has come 3 or 4 times and helped me when I really needed help. But they are moving now, they will be gone the first week in July. He told me that even though he will be living across town I could still call him and he would be happy to come but I really don’t know him that well, it’s just that he was directly across the street from me, and often out in the yard. I don’t feel like I can call after they leave. And even though I didn’t call on him often just knowing that they were there has given me a great deal of comfort, has made me feel safe. This is hard to explain and may seem silly to those of you reading it but it has made me feel so lost and afraid.

It’s a strange thing about neighbors these days. When I grew up you knew all your neighbors, and everyone helped one another. It is not like that anymore. The neighbor who lives next door to me and has since I’ve lived here, well, they say hello when I see them but they have never offered to help me, nor would I ask. I don’t even know almost any neighbors here. But there was Rudy and his family, and they are leaving.

I can’t stop crying. It is hard to even see through the tears to write here.

[I just deleted long paragraphs where I said too much. My friend asked me if I should wait to publish this post but I already had. I came back and read it and I had said too much. It is now gone, sigh…]

Do you see? I am perseverating, going round and round in a wicked, terrifying, circle that feels like circling the drain and going down for the last time. It is being stuck in that “worst case scenario” place that can feel like it is holding you in a death grip and won’t let go. It is terrifying, it is making me sick, I can’t stop crying, I took the pill. I cannot and will not almost ever do that, but this morning I was desperate, and the thing is, it doesn’t even feel like it is helping.

I think that most of us, we who are older, and alone, fear, more than anything, to be a burden on those we love. I know that I do. When I actually reach out to someone I am in a very bad way, and it’s hard for me to do so. I don’t know what the answer is but I am only 64. I can’t imagine how afraid I will be when I am 74, 84, should I live that long. I cannot breathe even thinking about it. The friends that I have that are that age are married or partnered.

This was a hard post to write, embarrassing even, but the thing is, I know I am not alone in this. The plight of the elderly who are alone is a very real issue today. While our hearts are aching and breaking for the terrible situation with the children in the world today there are elderly people everywhere alone and afraid, many neglected and forgotten which I am not, thank God. I appreciate the fact that I do have a child who lives here, that I can call, but she can’t be with me all the time, she has her own family, and she works fulltime, and I don’t want to be a burden, I can’t be. What then do we do? Most days I manage just fine, but today I look out across the street to the sweet neighbors who have been kind to me and who will soon be gone, and I don’t know what I will do now, and fear has become a monster that is devouring me.

I am supposed to go the Stitch and Bitch meeting tomorrow. I actually signed up online as being one who said she is going, my knitting bag is beside me, but I can’t go if I can’t get a grip, I can’t go if I am crying, and in this moment I don’t know how to stop. This is one of the hard days. I’m just trying to hold on and inch through the hours.