Aging from a useful man to something considerably less

For the first 70 years of my life, I made my living and earned my place being useful. I have been fixing, building, and designing everything from salvaged homes to consumer electronic products since I was 17. As an electronics engineer, I have been a designer, a manufacturing engineer, a manufacturing and customer service manager, a field clinical engineer (in medical devices), and a reliability assurance engineer. Along the way as my family's single income source, I have bought and upgraded five houses. I did almost all of the repairs to our family vehicles, my own motorcycles, and pretty much any piece of equipment related to work or home.

Since passing 70, my ability to do all or any of those things is rapidly in decline. About the only car repairs I do now is oil changes. Due to myasthenia gravis and vision issues, I sold my last motorcycle 2 years ago and, after 60 years on two wheels, I'm down to an occasional local ride on an e-bike. So far, I have been able to do all the repair work on my e-bikes. 😉 I have had an electronic shop in a garage or room of our homes for more than 50 years, but early this summer I started selling and giving away those tools and parts.

Between my job and chores and hobbies, doing stuff has been core to my self-identity. The stuff that I can do is rapidly shrinking and, with it, goes a good bit of who I have always thought I am. I know there have to be a lot of people in the same situation and I would love to know how you have handled it.m