Living at the place in time that we do, keeping pace is a challenge we all know well. Time flies, money flies in and out of our hands; there are garage sales, bake sales, new puppies, new cars, drivers licenses, awards, rewards, tickets, fees and penalties, weddings, births, graduations, anniversaries, birthdays, first hellos, and last goodbyes. Every one of us knows it takes a lot of brain power to stay on top of it all.

I don’t know about you, but I’m at a point where time goes by, perhaps, too fast. I do remember a time in my life, though, when I had the opportunity to slow things down—it was when my brother hired me to nanny his sons, my nephews. I was now on “kid time.” I learned quickly that as hard as I tried to fill my nephews’ time with exciting, fun (and often expensive!) things to do, the best times we ever had together were what we called “dumbing around.”

Sitting in the house watching workers reroofing the neighbor’s house; taking hikes where we never got very far because we sat down to watch a train of ants going about their business; my poor nephews patiently trying to teach me how to play video games(!); working on projects for school, not at the last minute but with time to actually enjoy the process; carefully shopping for just the right toys and gifts for charity at Christmastime; making beds with clean sheets and immediately flopping down on their fragrant warmth just to stare at the ceiling and talk. And for me, it was the first time in a great while that I actually noticed the early signs of each changing season.

The time I spent with my young nephews gave me a break from the rat race and reacquainted me with a perspective on living that I had not had since childhood. Unfortunately, all good things usually come to an end, and after a few years enjoying this welcome change of pace, the nephs were old enough to care for themselves. So, I re-entered the working world and soon had my target heart rate and blood pressure back up to society’s contraindicated norms! And then, I came to work at Dakim.

One happy aspect of my job is “riding along” with seniors who come into our offices to play Dakim BrainFitness. Observing and interacting with them, I learn how we can improve the “playability,” effectiveness, and overall enjoyment of our games. But this part of my job was not initially so happy.

Working with seniors brings with it yet another change of pace. Unfortunately, this one is the kind of pace that most of us are raised to associate less with living and more with the end of life. And it didn’t help me, either, that when I started at Dakim, I was on the steepest slippery slope of 45, careening toward 50!

For me, being around seniors had always been just mildly uncomfortable. I was comfortable with that discomfort because it seems natural to avoid reminders of our fragility and vulnerability—after all, they represent and sometimes even foreshadow our own unavoidable futures. What surprised me, though, was that in my recent years, as I had gotten so much closer to my future, I had become somewhat unnerved in the presence of aging.

Today, I consider myself a “recovering old-ageist.” When I managed to set aside my fears (in short spurts, at first!), I realized that this new pace I experience working with our players is actually very familiar—in fact, it’s just an adult version of “kid time.” And in the same way as before, I have come to relish my sessions with our visiting players as a welcome break from the rat race—a chance simply to be in the world, enjoying how good my cup of coffee tastes today and noticing what looks like the first signs of a new season.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Brenda Matteson is the editorial manager at Dakim. Her position entails envisioning, editing, and writing new games for Dakim BrainFitness. She has been with Dakim since October 2006, where she came as an already well-established editor and content creator for various forms of media for “end users” (a fancy technology industry term for “all us regular folks”!).