Musings on living to be old

7:00 a.m. Monday morning 4/20/2026. What a cold morning. We have returned to a version of winter at 36 degrees, overcast, damp and gloomy. This early hour is a novelty. Twice recently I awoke at 7:00 and in an unusual move, I got up from under my warm electric blanket and three cats. I was bribing myself to run an errand.

I have anxiety, not to an exceptional degree, but a lot. So sometimes things weigh on me enough to make a kind of water pressure that will drive me to action. Today I have two appointments, one for the hairdresser because in the excessive heat of last week, I decided to get my summer hair cut. My hair is thick and when it gets hot, my scalp just feels like it is steaming and I get heat rash, so each summer I get my hair cut short and let it grown so I have some warmth over winter. But this time, the weather turned and it is fairly cold right now - frost warnings and roads slick with frozen rain showers. Still, I will keep the appointment and get it over with. I don't like to do it anymore. It is hard for me to sit in that chair for so long - back and joints ache.

Second, my income tax refund caused me to make an appointment with a handyman, an old friend from my Outdoor Club days, to install another bannister on the back room steps, there are only 3 but I fell once. He put one in on the right side but I find that for safety, I need one on the left as well. He is coming this morning after his doctor appointment so about 10:30. My hair appointment is at 1:30.

I was out of a couple of essentials, so I awoke trying to figure out how to fit it all in along with a shower before the hairdresser. I bribed myself with a Dunkin Donuts latte' which got me over to the ShopRite parking lot and I had the pleasure of buying my few items in a nearly empty store - no one in line ahead of me at all. People don't shop at 7:00 a.m. apparently.

I came home to enjoy my latte' and a corn muffin by 8:00 a.m. Early mornings are such a luxury. Another luxury that I enjoy is my location. I am so lucky to live in a pocket of leafy small town amidst a surburan excess of shopping centers and highways. If I drew radiating lines from my house, in less than half a mile I have two large old grocery stores: Acme shopping center on the Black Horse Pike, and ShopRite on the Kings Highway and Route 130 intersection. I am straight down Market Street to Gloucester City and the Delaware River, Next door to three towns with excellent parks: Audubuon with Newton Creek Park and Collingswood with Knight's Park and their branch of the Newton Creek park system, and Gloucester City with Proprietor's Park and Martin's Lake!

My little bungalow is tucked into a small wooded lot with a large backyard full of old shady trees in a small town of bungalows all well cared for by hard working long time residents. People like it here, so I have neighbors who have been here as long as I have, 40 years. We have convenience stores within a few blocks in every direction and on the corner of my street is an honest and effective car repair shop!

These things come to matter more and more as I get older. My friends and I all evaluate our living conditions for the demands of our 80's. My one friend just moved into an assisted living apartment at Medford Leas, from her 4 bedroom house in the woods of Shamong. There was nothing near her and her house demanded so much - snow removal, leaf removal, immense amounts of yard work and deck repair and maintenance. ANother friend lives in a convenient and lovely home in an over 50 community, but for me, the highways she has to travel to get anywhere are terrifying. She is out in the farmlands of Burlington County, a new development.

My plan is to age in place and my small home should make that feasible with the help of my sister and my neighbors and SenHan transit (for when I can no longer drive).

No matter how realistic a person is, it is still a shock to come to this part of the road of life, old age. We don't, somehow expect to be old and yet here we are.

Hope you are in a good place - Happy Trails! wrightj45@yahoo.com