The patience that comes with old age…or is it complacency???

I was at the house of a local elderly lady this week, cleaning and providing company and as I was watching her prepare her breakfast I was suddenly struck with how patient and slowly she performs her routine.
I will just add here, its a lady I have known since being a child, almost like an adopted nanna to me now, hence the going round to help her out once a week.

Anyway, I was watching as she slowly laid the table, popped out the pills, even took the effort to close up every pill pack and ensure the leaflet goes back in each pack, the way she slowly spreads the peanut butter on the bread, so even, so surely, so precise. I took in the fact that she always gets out a saucer for the tea cups, always place mats for every item on the table. No corners are cut, nothing is rushed and I got to thinking…

How is it the elderly are so patient? How is it that those of us with the least time left are able to comfortably take the most time to do the most menial tasks? How are they so calm about the use of time?

What do they understand that we ‘youngsters’ don’t? Is it that they lose the drive to do all the things I simply can’t stop thinking about doing? do they not have so many things to read, learn, experience? Or is it simply that they have learned to appreciate the small things, take joy in the every day tasks which the younger generations rush through looking for more exciting time fillers?

Will I one day awaken to find joy in the preparation of setting the table for breakfast?

It seems surreal, how I could ever be so content with the passage of time. For me each day is carefully planned, there are so many things I feel I need to learn, so many experiences to partake in and to plan for. I am terrified of wasting my time here, of running out, of not making the most of every second, but is this terror causing me to rush through my life? Am I missing the joys of the small things in life by rushing on to the rest? Is the very thing driving me to live more causing me to actually experience less of the life I am living?

Is this the same with everyone?

Should we be consciously making more effort to actively live in every moment, to partake completely in every task, every routine of the day? Or is it that we should make more effort to remember our vigour as we age, not to let ourselves be placated with the comfort of routine???