My Work

I didn’t get a chance to write this week because I wasn’t stuck this week. I had to work full-time because the flu swept through my place of employment and it was all hands on deck. I work as a receptionist at an assisted living facility and as the activities director at the same facility’s memory care wing. When I worked Friday it looked like almost everybody was on the mend, though, and I’m hoping all will be back to normal after this weekend.

I’ve worked with or been around seniors just about my whole life but working where I do now at the assisted living facility has made me realize just how full life can be at any age and at any level of mobility. Too many people believe that seniors lapse into some sort of special elderly level of life–that love becomes non-physical, that personalities can be divided into “sweet little old” or “crotchety old”, and that participation in the day to day becomes strictly passive. It’s simply not true. I know I knew this at some level but until I could see it for myself on a regular basis it never really sunk in. It does my heart a world of good to know that romance and sex and soap opera drama can be part of my life even if I live to be 100. I’ll still be able to sit with my girlfriends and gossip in a corner. I’ll still be able to express my opinion and have it not only be heard but have it be valued. I’ll be able to dance even if I’m in a wheelchair and dress up in silly costumes for a variety of occasions. Working where I work, I know now that I don’t ever have to grow up and that youth truly is a state of mind and not the passing of years. If anybody doubts that, drop by Magnolia Gardens and see for yourself. But be prepared to leave feeling better about life than when you arrived. It’s kind of contagious that way.

(I thought I’d lost this entry but I just found it. I actually wrote this last weekend, I believe. I’ll try to get a picture up later. It’s a beautiful place.)

~ by Me on February 17, 2008.