How frequency illusion changes over time

The Husband and I have just returned from a brief five-day trip away. When it takes a day to drive there and back, we really only had a few days of pottering, but it was lovely. We stayed in an upmarket village, during the school week, so the hotel didn't have children, nor did many of the restaurants, cafes (except for Sunday brunch), vineyards, art galleries, etc. It's easy to just go about our business these days, without being surrounded by kids, simply because they and their families are not interested in the things we do. I just don't notice them in the same way, and it doesn't hurt.

What I do notice these days, since I joined those with natural greys in their hair, are people my age or older, with their elderly relatives. My frequency illusion has shifted - I no longer see or react to parents and children. Rather, it occurs around elderly people needing care. I noticed it recently at our local shopping centre, when I dropped in to get a coffee, with an elderly man pushing a much more elderly woman in a wheelchair. I noticed it yesterday at a farmer's market, with an old man with a walker, and his son (also not young) who was waiting for him. Of course, that was us only a year or so ago. But it's also a reminder of our lives in ten or (more likely, I hope) twenty or thirty years time, and the physical and mental needs we might have then. This is what makes me wince a little these days, far more than the sight of a family with young kids, or a pregnant belly. But at this stage, I'm not wincing a lot. I think being prepared for what will come, knowing that I won't have a child or children pushing me around in a wheelchair, is liberating. But I have to do a little more thinking, and inevitably, writing about it to truly figure out what I think.