259/365 Clock Work by martinak15 (CC BY 2.0)
Aging & Attitude
Happy New Year!
It is hard to believe it is 2015 but it is.
Mr. Wonderful* and I celebrated by eating at McDonald’s on the way home from Orlando International. We were hungry. We were away for sixteen days and that return flight was our best choice, besides New Year’s is not about fun; we are retired and have fun all the time. New Year’s is about making changes, anyway; it was a direct flight.
One of life’s challenges is change or to move forward, because there is no standing still and consequently we will go backwards or decline. This is evident with aging, and the realization none of us will escape wearing diapers and eating soft food. We can only hope to keep up with the changing world around us. Perhaps these thoughts are the cause of my recent dwelling on the novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell. You must recall the terms it made famous; Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, telescreen, 2+2=5, and memory hole.
Reading the book as a sixteen year old scared the crap out of me. I could not imagine the year 1984, and doubted I would be alive to have Big Brother watch me. And if I were, would insist 2+2 equaled four and be convicted of thoughtcrimes .
It was 1964 and 1984 was twenty years away.
In 2015, I have the same predicament. I cannot imagine the world twenty years from now, and doubt I will be alive.
Not true! Senior Journal reports, “– Happy New Year! If you are age 65, and pretty much average, you should expect to live another 19.3 years, according to new life expectancy projections.”
Well I am pretty much average. In twenty years I will be eighty-seven and Mr. Wonderful eighty-six. Yes, I married a younger man. Our son will be sixty; daughter, fifty-eight and grandchildren in their thirties.
I am considering going vegan or at least eating blueberries for breakfast.
What will the world be like in twenty years? Will we get flying cars, personal robots and travel in space? Some people predict a Utopia existence free of pollution and poor health. Mandatory ID chips inserted in our brains will provide education and track our location so there will be no forgetting where you parked or left your keys. Right, we won’t need keys, nor be parking.
So now I am rethinking my New Year resolutions and changing my expectations. How important is losing five pounds?
. . . . just saying
*Mr. Wonderful aka, Bob, my husband
claudiajustsaying 
