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Aging and the Sweet Call of Isolation

The dangerous comforts of staying home

Orrin Onken
Crow’s Feet: Life As We Age

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AI Image, prompt by Author

Odysseus plugged the ears of his sailors so they would not hear the music of the Sirens and be lured to their deaths upon the rocky shore of the island on which they lived.

For me, an old person, one of the rocky shores threatening my leaky boat is isolation and loneliness. The pros say that isolation among the elderly, or anyone, is as dangerous as smoking. Now in my 70s, I have no urge to take up smoking, but isolation becomes more and more attractive. As I explore this strange realm called old age, I notice that loneliness is not necessarily something imposed upon us, but something we choose.

Decades ago, I was talking with one of the many psychiatrists who have wandered in and out of my life. He explained that dysfunction doesn’t just drop suddenly out of the sky. It grows slowly. A day at a time. People don’t one day wake up and embrace madness. They are introduced to it gradually, accepting each step toward it because that step is not much weirder than the previous one. Then one day Aunt Edna brings up a severed head from her basement laboratory and the family accepts it because it is not so different from what she brought up the week before.

While practicing elder law, I saw terrible things — elders ensconced in filthy homes they…

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