Flickering

After I got to 70 —the age, not the speed—on some days I feel all the expectations and fears about that age:

1. My back periodically hurts.

Will the rest of my body start to deteriorate?

• I experience memory lapses.

Am I heading toward dementia?

• I feel that my children no longer need me.

What is my purpose in life?

• And in the past year I have had to spend substantial time taking care of my ailing husband.

Will I need to spend more of my time in the future as a caregiver?

Wow!- these are not happy thoughts.  And although I was glad to retire from my 40+ year career just a few years ago, it took away a structure and focus for my life. And more and more of the ages of people I read about in the NYTimes obituary columns are younger than me.

Ahh, but on other days I feel ageless. I am engaged in life and I don’t even think about my age. I am excited about an anthology of my essays that I am preparing, I plan meetings with friends and weekend trips (and feel grateful for home health aides), I do volunteer work with immigrants who I enjoy talking with, and I am happy that my children love their work and have happy lives.  

I now think of my experience of life like a bulb when it is declining: I am flickering, in both my energy and enthusiasm. I think of my pleasures in life as AC and DC—alternating and direct current— not in the formal definition of those terms but rather that sometimes my life pleasure is alternating and at other times it is direct and unencumbered by distraction or worry. I often don’t have a choice as to whether it is AC or DC, and these appear on a spectrum, but I can move to the DC side by getting active—take a walk, write, read, or call a friend. These seem to work. And I had an experience recently that involved my dining area light fixture, that provided some important lessons about reducing flickering.

I have a light fixture over my dining room table that uses three small LED bulbs. A few months ago one went out and I had difficulty replacing it. I called for a porter in my building to help me. He told me that the connection was bad, that the bulb that went out couldn’t be replaced, and that I would need to get a whole new fixture. He said there was a problem with the ballast in the fixture (I looked it up, but I still don’t know what that is). Shopping for household items is one of my least favorite things to do, and as there were two other working bulbs, providing enough light for eating and reading, I postponed looking for a new fixture.

 About a month later, a second bulb went out and the third began flickering! Now this definitely needed attention. I tried replacing the newly malfunctioning bulbs but couldn’t get new bulbs into the sockets of the fixture. I realized I had no choice now, I needed to get a new fixture. Eating and reading by candlelight I suppose was an alternative, but not one I wanted to use.

Since I didn’t want to be totally without any light, and evening was approaching, I needed a short-term fix.  I called the maintenance office, and a new porter came to my apartment. He replaced the bulb that had recently gone out, and left the flickering one alone. But then, even though I told him that the third bulb was inoperable, he put a new bulb in that fixture too.

Miracle! The two new bulbs worked, and the flickering one stopped flickering. It’s been over a month now, and all three bulbs work steadily whenever I turn them on. And I am enjoying it. Although I expect the whole fixture will likely need replacing soon, the need is no longer urgent. I think there are some lessons here:

• Just because a light has gone out, doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be rekindled. It’s worth a try.
• Sometimes asking for help, from a new perspective, will get you what you need.
• If a light is flickering, put another bulb nearby that is burning brightly—it may get the flickering light to shine steadily again.
• You may have more time than you think.