Jealousy, The Green-Eyed Monster As Constant Companion

by Julia Sneden

Whenever I attend one of my granddaughter’s swimming meets, I am seized with intense nostalgia that borders on jealousy. No, correct that;  it is jealousy, although it is mitigated by pride and delight as I watch her stroke down the lane in her beautiful, even crawl. The sight triggers memories of how it feels to be young and strong, and reaching for the rewards that effort and discipline can bring. Believe me, I am happy for her.

Circe Invidiosa  (“Circe, abounding in envy”) by John William Waterhouse; Image of Circe, a figure from Greek mythology, who appears in Homer’s Odyssey. This painting shows a scene not from the Odyssey, but from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. A jealous Circe throws a magic potion into the well, where her rival in love Scylla is going to bathe; Wikipedia

But it would be hard not to envy her that joy because as she comes into her own, I am increasingly aware that my physical and mental powers are slowly dwindling despite my earnest efforts to hang onto them.

I’m an active person, but my balance is beginning to fray around the edges, and the strength in my hands is nowhere near what it was just a couple of years ago. Neither is my mental agility. Focus and swift recall are both showing signs of wear from my accumulating years.

No, I don’t think I am developing Alzheimer’s. I do realize that memory lapses are common to anyone my age, and I take comfort in the fact that while the neurons and synapses function more slowly, they do function. If I can’t instantly recall a fact or a name, I know that if I just stop trying, it will float up when it’s good and ready (sometimes at 2 a.m., sometimes in the midst of an unrelated conversation, sometimes days later).

I don’t waste time worrying about the problem. When my memory glitches, I tell myself that I simply know too much, and have overloaded my mental circuits. After all, when my computer tries to handle too much, it, too, slows down. Unfortunately, I can’t just go out to the computer store and buy myself a new brain.

Poet Dylan Thomas’s advice on dealing with the diminishments of aging is:

‘Do not go gently into the good night…

Rage, rage against the dying of the light!’

That’s a breathtaking bit of bravado, but I’m not sure many of us can muster the energy to follow his advice. I could rage, I guess, if I really worked at it, but somehow I don’t want to go out of this world expending a lot of effort on anger.

It seems to me that a sense of humor serves better. It’s true that having a good laugh at yourself requires the exercise of hard-earned perspective, but it’s not a bad alternate response to the fact that life is a terminal condition.