What does a day in my life as a senior like?
A few weeks ago, out of idleness, I thought of knowing what a day of some seniors be like. So I posted this question this question to some FB senior citizens groups: “What keeps you busy in a typical day?”
Only a few shared their thoughts with me. But they were revealing enough. Most are busy looking after grandchildren. Some do house chores, while a few do gardening.
They look familiar, don’t they? I bet you are doing some of these yourself.
In some ways, my life as a senior follows the same pattern – with a few exceptions. I still don’t have a grandchild to look after (one is coming, though, early next year) and I can’t grow a damn thing. Even plastic flowers wilt under my touch.
But house chores? I am up to my neck in this – 7/7. In fact, house chores take up a bulk of my time on any given day to often put my hobby – writing – on the back burner.
After doing my house chores, I am up to my neck with other activities to keep me busy as a bee.
So be a good sport and read on, will you? I’m sure you do some of the things I do on a typical day. You may not agree with a few, or laugh or frown in disbelief at others.
Here they are…
Up before sunrise
I set my alarm is set at 4:30 in the morning. I admit, however, there are some mornings the urge to throw the darn thing against the wall – if only I can afford another smartphone.
Being up early allows me to do all the things scheduled for the day – with ample time for short rest periods of rest. Gone are the days when I can do house chores in one go. Now I make pit stops along the way.
Another reason why waking up is a necessary, though unpleasant routine, is that i am a very orderly person and I want things the way they should be, or else I get stressed out.
So when the alarm goes on, my feet are on the floor ready to make the first activity of the day – the toilet run.
Preparing breakfast follows soon after. I am not a good cook so my breakfast is nothing fancy – fried egg, sausage or sweet. I alternate them during the week together with a piece of sliced bread. Then I gulp them down with hot chocolate and top it off with a slice of papaya and a banana.
After breakfast, I do my morning prayers. Non-believers may scoff at this. But it’s alright. We live our lives differently. I take them seriously, though. For what it’s worth, it sets me off with lightheartedness as I tackle the rigors of the day. It gives me a certain piece of mind.
My prayers are simple, nothing to gloat about – as prayers should be. I consider it a private conversation with God, not to be shared with others.
Flex my old muscles and bones
Right after I say, “Amen,” I don on my exercise attire. Tennis shorts for Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The rest of the week, it is biking shorts. For those who are not in the habit of exercising, here’s one tip: Nothing beats exercising to set you off each day. There are mornings when I wake up as if carrying a ton of bricks. But once I start flexing my muscles, my feelings of lethargy will go away like a wisp of smoke.
art
My day as a senior is not complete without my regular exercise. They have kept me going until now with no serious chronic medical issues common to most seniors. –
I do have take medication for hypertension and my osteoarthritis makes going up and down staircases painful and laborious. Thanks goodness, they are not life-threatening. In fact, the results of my panel test a couple of months ago show better results than other guys younger than me.
So if you want to stay healthy and look younger, flex your old muscles and bones. It doesn’t cost anything. And it is better than buying all those skin-care creams and dieting pills.
Life at mid-morning
After doing my regular exercise, it’s household chores until around 9 o’clock in the morning when I take my mid-morning snack and my first rest for the day. I hate them (the house chores) but I can’t get around them without my house looking like a dump. I have a mild case of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). so I want things in my house clean, neat, and organized; everything must be where they are supposed to be.
A lot of seniors may be spared of these unpleasant activities. Not me. I live alone and have nobody to do them for me. To lighten the load, I force myself to think that they are parts of my exercise regimen.
My house is a single-story, three-bedroom affair. In my 40s I can clean the entire house on a Sunday morning. Now my hips and knees no longer cooperating. So I have to schedule the part of the house to clean on particular days of the week. For example, bathrooms are cleaned on Saturdays and laundry is every other Sunday.
I make sure that everything is done by around 9 a.m. – in time for my first snack of the day. Then I wash the breakfast dishes and rest for a few minutes before moving on to my next task
Preparing for lunch comes next.
Cook or buy?
Except for frying – fried fish, fried pork or chicken, I cannot cook anything else. So, generally, I buy my food, except rice. That’s easy.
Buying food from a mini-restaurant (carenderia) is very practical for a live-alone senior like me. It is cheaper and I don’t have to wash any cooking utensils right after. Of course, the food I eat on a daily basis is not prepared by gourmets. But what the heck, it is eating for survival, not for pleasure
Needless to say, dinners are always left-overs form lunch. Bon apetit.
But no matter how meager my meals are, they always come with a banana, a serving of mango, a few chunks of apple, and a few pieces of grapes.
So far, I have survived and survived well
Life at noon and beyond
Immediately after lunch, I do the task I like the least – washing the dishes, again.
More than two years ago, I had a house helper to do the house chores. I drove her out when her attitude became outrageous Now I have to do this darn thing every day of my life as a senior.
But there’s no going around it. Otherwise, I can’t enjoy what comes up next – my mid-day siesta.
My mid-day siesta is an hour-long nap. It is a culture-based habit I acquired a long time ago. Now at my age, culture has nothing to do with it anymore. I need it to give me an extra boost of energy for the rest of the day.
Getting down to the serious stuff
Things get serious when I wake up – I pray the rosary, take a bath to freshen up then go online.
On average, I am online 10 hrs. a day – something few seniors my age can do. I check my emails, read personal-improvement articles, and update my blog. Towards evening, I check my social networking sites, the watch online movies. The last activity primes me for a good sleep. For more than a year now, I write blog posts for a jewelry website. The pay is meager, but it supplements my retirement income and financial support from my children.
Some of my contemporaries wonder how I can stay glued in front of my laptop for such a long time. I find it therapeutic; drives away loneliness and feelings of isolation.
Going online keeps my mind active and up-to-date on the latest; it slows down cognitive decline. And it is an easy and safe way to keep tabs on relatives and friends.
Bedtime routine
By 8:30 p.m. I start winding down my online activities so that I can be in bed by 10. Call it my Cinderella time. No, I won’t turn into a pauper but I won’t be feeling as fresh in the morning if I sleep a little later.
Unlike some seniors, I have no sleep problems. On most nights, I am in dreamland 5 mins after hitting the bed and I sleep an average of 6 hrs.
No, I don’t have a quick-sleep formula. But my regular late-evening snack and a shower – both known to promote good sleep – are a great help.
Oh, lest I forget, I do my evening prayers right before laying myself down to sleep. It’s my way of giving thanks for having lived through a wonderful day and implore that I will see another sunrise.
Not set on stone
Of course, a day in my life as a senior is not set in stone. Like other seniors, unexpected things come up that will throw off everything that’s planned for the day.
There are always days when the sun is not so sunny making me feel lethargic and lazy. On days like these, I go back to bed.
Or when feelings of isolation become so unbearable to tear me apart, I take a long drive to cool things off. It’s very rejuvenating to sit alone on a beach somewhere and watch the tiny waves lap the shore.
Before the Covid19 pandemic, my daughter often let me spend a few evenings in an island resort. Now, they are all on the back burner until I got vaccinated.
Once in a while, I am spared from preparing my meals when my younger sister shares some food with me. Or I bring some leftovers from a lunch or dinner date with my daughter.
A day in my life as a senior is like a toss of the dice – I never know which side comes up. But I wouldn’t get this far had I not learned a few tricks in how to roll with the dice.
I am good at the art of improvisation and very resilient. And can get by with whatever face I am dealt with.
So far, I’ve done alright – thanks to these two things working in my favor:
First, I have no serious chronic health issues.
Second, I have a couple of children who are taking good care of me.
~oOo~
