Wasting Time

There is a couple who lives here that I had noticed before.

Older than most.  Probably mid 80s.  

They sat down next to me at the pool when I first noticed them.  I was not trying to eavesdrop - in fact I was wearing noise cancelling headphones in an attempt to drown out the 1970s soundtrack that plays over the speakers all day.  But the headphones were not terribly effective and I could not help but follow along with their conversation.

She has dementia.  No doubt.  As we sat resting in the sun, he patiently - or at least as patiently and anyone could be expected to - answered her as she asked the same questions over and over again.  "Who is coming to dinner?  Are we going to the clubhouse?  Are we having chicken or pizza?"  

She was once beautiful.  Her hair and nails are well-kept.  She wears her bathing suit with a perfectly coordinated cover-all.  Her lipstick is red and perfectly applied.  He sits at the pool doing Soduko, hoping I suppose to keep his own brain firing.  There is a tenderness there.

They are not the typical 55 Plus Community couple.  Many of my neighbors are still working; Frances played golf this past weekend with two women who are still very much at the top of their careers - one in anti-terrorism and one in retail management.   Young families visit the pool, eat in the restaurants and visit. Most of us are at least several golf games and a 20 mile bike ride away from a nursing home.

I imagine that this older couple is trying to hold on to what they once had, and I get that.  It was not surprising that they were at the pool again today.  They were in the water...  cooling off.   I couldn't help but make my way up to her, smile and say hello.  

She smiled and said to me, "This is a lovely way to waste time, isn't it?"

Oh my.  Is that what we are doing?  I feel myself adapting to the leisurely and somewhat indulgent pace.  As I read books and take Pilates classes, I tell myself that I am recuperating after years of turmoil and six months of insanity in an 8th grade math classroom. 

But she nailed it.  The risk IS that I am wasting time.  The risk is that I become insulated by this gated community and confuse its petty dramas for the real world.  The risk is that I am not the better or the more effective for living here. The risk is that I confuse this "lifestyle" with a life.