RETIRING TYPES

I’ve got to that age…

I might not be quite ready to hang up my mouse-clicking finger, grab my coat, and consider cultivating prize-winning Petunias in the back garden just yet, but I’m noticing a slight gravitational shift when it comes to the familiar professionals who I’ve been dealing with for quite a few tears now, as if the universe has taken it upon itself to remind me that change is necessary, and that change is good thing, before slapping me in the face and packing me off kicking and screaming into eternity.

But last week, I had one of those “moments”, those rubicon-crossing, “stop and think” stepping stones which means that your life has changed forever. One of those “happening for the first time” events which means that your life has moved into a new phase and perhaps will never feel quite the same again.

You see, quite a few of the professionals whose lives interact with mine are just ever-so-slightly older than I am, but that also means that they’re old enough to be thinking about scary things like retirement.

I went to see my dentist this week for the usual six-monthly check-up and we were engaging in a bout of lively but mutually understood banter about whether the strange bloody taste in my mouth each morning is a side-effect of all those blood pressure medications.

Ha, bloody, ha… Rolls eyes knowingly whilst there’s a great big metal tube stuck down my throat, you know the sort of thing…

Anyway, after the usual polishing and scraping ordeal, she announced that I’ll need to make another appointment for six months but “...it won’t be with me, because I’m retiring…”

Bombshell…

I mean. I knew her hair was a little bit grey, but then so is mine… I kind of thought we were of much the same age, give or take a half-decade or so, but of course, it’s that half-decade that makes all the difference, especially if you’re lucky enough to be in a profession where “early retirement” is an option…

Anyway, I wished her all the best and the best of luck, and went away to book my appointment, mildly sad that there’s another person who I’ll probably never, ever see again, but also, and perhaps selfishly, wracked with the kind of slight worry and doubt that enforced change can make gnaw away at the back of my mind.

So next time, I’m going to have to start training up a new one from scratch and that’s never easy, although at least this time I’m getting a bit of warning. The last time I had to change my dentist it was because of him having an accident, and I got “given” to a locum who seemed far more interested in lining his pockets with cosmetic procedures rather than in what was happening around my gums.

Luckily, he’d vanished – presumably into the realms of private practice – after only a couple of attempts at persuading me and I was switched to my current, now former, dental professional and everything’s been fine since then.

Well, until now, that is…

I do wonder what kind of eager young whippersnapper I will find behind that grim door the next time I venture there and it is a ittle bit of a worry, especially if he or she is the sort who’s embraced all kinds of new gadgets and gizmos and keeps me in the chair for hours for no very good reason as they explore deep into my jawbone and venture into dark cavities that we’ve already come to an understanding about.

Shudder…!

I never did like change all that much, but now I’m starting to realise that, over the course of the next decade or so, this sort of thing is likely to start happening rather more frequently than I’d like it to.

Why can’t the world just play a game of “statues” and freeze in a position that I quite like until I’m finished with it…?

That would be more helpful, I think…