{"id":40507,"date":"2024-01-20T00:01:49","date_gmt":"2024-01-20T08:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=40507"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:50:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:50:43","slug":"am-i-still-old-or-am-i-elderly-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/am-i-still-old-or-am-i-elderly-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Am I Still Old? Or Am I Elderly Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"am-i-still-old-or-am-i-elderly-now-grab-bar-bathroom\"<\/a>
Am I still old? Or am I elderly now? Having an institutional looking grab bar like this one by the toilet would make me feel super old. Would it help to get one with a pretty vinyl cove<\/a>r? Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back in October, I cheerfully titled a post “I’m Old. And Here’s What I Like About That.”<\/a><\/p>\n

I was liking old age at the time. With 82 years to my credit, life felt bountiful, plentiful.<\/p>\n

Two-and-half weeks later, I succumbed to head-spinning, nauseating vertigo, and for the next five weeks, I got around the house like an old lady — stooped over a hospital-issue walker and taking the stairs cautiously: up the stairs on all fours, down the stairs on the seat of my pants.<\/p>\n

Woozy day and night, I took to using the walker to steady myself as I got up from the toilet.<\/p>\n

Plans for remodeling the upstairs bathroom were already underway when my head started spinning. Extra grab bars for the shower were part of the plan. This seemed prudent. But now it looked like I’d need yet another grab bar — a short one next to the toilet.<\/p>\n

Which set me to wondering, am I still old? If I need a grab bar by the toilet, doesn’t that make me elderly?<\/p>\n

No Grab Bars for My Grandaunt<\/strong><\/h5>\n

My grandaunt Pinky had no grab bars in her cottage on Bass Lake. She was too elegant for that. She was middle-aged when I knew her as a kid growing up in Michigan, and she was a one of a kind.\u00a0 She was the only person on our side of the lake with a lawn in her front yard. She was the only one with what you would call a yard<\/em>. Most people came to Bass Lake to live in the woods among the pine trees and crackle berries, not to cut the grass.<\/p>\n

Besides the lawn, my grandaunt owned a set of corncob holders. Today you can buy the things online. Back then, only city sophisticates knew about corncob holders. They served to keep the butter off our fingers as our teeth went up and down the kernel rows while Pinky told gossipy stories of times gone by in places like Chicago and Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

Pinky had a mind of her own. She had those corncob holders and that lawn. Also a husband she divorced and remarried.<\/p>\n

\"am-i-still-old-or-am-i-elderly-now\/cottage-in-michigan-1930s\"<\/a>
The Falcon, our cottage on Bass Lake, had no lawn, but plenty of oaks, pine trees, moss and ferns growing about it — and no indoor bathroom. Barbara Newhall Photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pinky talked a lot and laughed a lot. She had a lot to say. That’s the heritage on my mother’s side. The women talked and laughed. My grandmother Toto was a talker. So was my mother and my mother’s sister Dickie and, of course, Pinky.<\/p>\n

I grew to adulthood eventually. My family stopped spending summers at Bass Lake, and I didn’t see my grandaunt for decades. When we finally met again, Pinky was no longer middle-aged. She wasn’t even old. She was elderly<\/em>. Her dark hair, once seductive, was now mostly white. Her face was gaunt, her eyes drooped, her body so frail she couldn’t stand up to greet me. She could barely smile, let alone carry on a conversation.<\/p>\n

Am I Still Old? Or Am I Elderly Now?<\/h5>\n

It’s been two months now, and the vertigo is letting up. I stand upright as I go up and down the stairs. The walker is stored out of sight in the basement, and I cancelled the grab bar for the toilet.\u00a0It seems I’m not elderly after all. I’m back to being old.<\/p>\n

Still, elderly lurks in my future. When it arrives, I’ll probably be OK with weak, stooped and gaunt. But I don’t think I can do without the talking and laughing.<\/p>\n

More about old and older at “The Shame of Aging. The Big Seven-Five Has Finally Arrived.”<\/a>\u00a0 Also, “Tint My Eyebrows? It’s an Existential Question.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"am-i-still-old-or-am-i-elderly-now-grab-bar-bathroom\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Head-spinning vertigo had me stumbling around the house like an old lady. I had to wonder, am I still just old? Or have I moved on to being elderly?\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","category-widowed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40507"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48859,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40507\/revisions\/48859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}