I, too, send good wishes for the speedy resolution of your dental situation. As I have basically had a subscription with my dentist for years now, I do sympathize. But it sounds as if once it's done, your whole body and mind will be in such a better place.
As for the real topic you have provided, yes, I have noticed that I am reacting less and less well/less and less quickly/less and less effectively to interruptions and surprises. There are also fewer of them, which may contribute to my dwindling reactivity.
As for concentration, yes, it, too, is harder to maintain, but I have a feeling that that is in part due to the large amount of time I dedicate to my computer ... and to how easy it is to interrupt something I'm reading to look up a word, a name, a date or something else while I am reading.
On the other hand, perhaps all this is actually keeping my brain more active and vital than it would be otherwise.
Speriamo bene!

Oh, dental work. That always disrupts my schedule negatively, planned or unplanned. My husband, however, in the midst of redoing his mouth also, gets calls to come in at the last minute because there is a cancellation, and it doesn't bother him a bit.

I think it's the nature of the surprise that determines how bothered I am. I just got a request for a lunch meeting in 3 hours, and I'm leaving town an hour after that - this is an important group, and I enjoy the other members, so it doesn't bother me to rearrange my schedule. Yet.

I worked with older people in my working days, and I noticed a need to schedule well in advance, and only schedule one "event" a day. Often, if they were scheduled for a bus ride 5 days in advance, but the weather maybe was changing in the meantime, even if the forecast was good for the day of the trip and the trip was in town, they would call in to cancel. Certainty was more important than shopping.

The dentist is a tough one for anyone...but also for those with brain injuries or damage. We are raising four kids with FASD-(drug and alcohol exposure during pregnancy), and their inability to cope with change or the unexpected leads either to them shutting down or melting down...In trying to help them I read a lot and find a lot of overlap in these areas, maybe the aging brain has some similarities. Speedy recovery!

Dental repair and car repair and computer glitch surprises are the worst.

Feel better Ronnie. My disdain for the dental profession is boundless. A hundred years of modern dentistry and the best cure for a bad tooth is to pull it out. Thank god the pediatrist doesn't take the same course of treatment when you have a sprained ankle or your nails need clipping.
Getting back to the topic. While I don't feel that I easily get distracted, I do know that my ability to multi-task has diminished. Now it's one thing at a time.

Low-active routines have become the norm for me and any break from those routines tend to be irritating. I have to psyche myself into dealing with them rather than, as you mentioned, simply dealing with them as I did when much younger

I hope the dental work goes along with no surprises, and that you feel good soon.

I did recognize so much of what you wrote about. I like to have "space" around activities, and too much too often is tiring. And I don't like schedule surprises either. And I don't even consider myself that old!

My life is so less hectic than when I was teaching. Small occurrences then were just part of the day and quickly fixed. Now? Not so much. The small things are the big things in my quiet life.

I am very grateful for the time to be able to handle those small annoyances, though, rather than lump them into my over scheduled days of yore.

I have noticed this fluttery annoyance with plan disruptions in both my husband and myself.

Here's how I rationalize it (and for all I know, my "explanation" may actually be true!): Been there, done that.

Like most people, I raced to put out fires, solve problems, achieve goals, and surmount obstacles all through my 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. Now, something inside feels like it's done with all that.

My first reaction to a new setback is: THIS AGAIN? What is this, 1972?

On the other hand, meeting or ducking the new challenge produces a certain exhilaration, still. It's just that I don't go out of my way to seek it.

Which (for another rant) is why I find those ads showing photogenic senior models hang-gliding and mountain climbing so absurd. All of us over 50 have things, like Ronni's dental "adventure", that are plenty adrenaline-producing in real life. They find us; we don't have to look for them.

Funny that so many things I used to see in my parents or other elders, I would vow to never let get in my way. Even joked about putting those thoughts in a time capsule to remind myself when I "got there" that I would never do or be like. Well, it's becoming a more frequent effort now to stay flexible. Those roadblocks I thought they threw up for themselves are getting more understandable even though I still vow to resist setting them if I can help it. I don't purposely schedule things tightly together now, but if it happens, I want to let go the urge not to do something last minute.

Last minute things that affect finances are always disrupting. And there is no denying the extra recovery time needed with every passing year. Be well, Ronni, we all want you to feel better soon. We depend on you for the "me, too, moments!"

Relate to a lot shared
especially Darlene.
I do not sleep well
and I over react at this time.
Now 80, thankful this is only happening the last several years. Not from 75 downward :)

OMG....you took this section of life right out of my own experience. I am 72 and have found myself going through the same thing. My son gets annoyed and doesn't understand why I need lead-in time for anything new. I don't understand it myself, but I now will defend, to the death, my right to feel this way.

I completely view anything sprung on me as an intrusion, if not an outright invasion, into my life. I've tried to analyze this and have come up with two possibilities for me personally. One is that I finally have control over my days (no work or crazy schedules) and I want to spend them doing only what I want to do. The second is I have a sort of 'inner schedule' that is my new foundation/blueprint, and if something is interjected into it, it throws off the relative smoothness or predictability of my life. I am still loose enough to ride with the unexpected....as long as I'm given enough advance warning to absorb it and make friends with it before I have to do it.

My friends are the same way, and none of us knows when this started to become part of our personalities, or why. It is what it is, though. You are not alone.

I wish you a good recovery from your surgery, along with many 'static schedule' days to come. Any further insight into this situation will be greatly appreciated. :-)
Suzanne Tate

Interesting that nearly all these responses deal with unpleasant surprises. What about pleasant ones, like a grandchild calling or a dear old friend dropping in? I love those as much as I ever did, and find them just as therapeutic.

As far as dental appointments go,I'll bet none of us knows anyone who deals well with those. Good luck, Ronni.

I also was a multi-tasker at work and home. About a year ago (71), I realized I didn't want that, didn't need it. And seriously was no longer good at it. The passion was missing.

Time is on my back and there it can rest and enjoy itself. I still like control of my time and space and zealously own those choices, kindly explaining to all who don't understand, while knowing they don't - yet.

I thank the stars for people like Ronni with all her enthusiasm and organizational skills, and all of you kindred spirits. Terrific comments from everyone. My neck hurts from nodding so vigorously and often.

Ronni, you and most of your commenters today sound like the bastions of Calm, compared to me -- that is, in terms of unexpected interruptions, surprises,demands, etc. that have emerged during your working life.

I, on the other hand, have never been able to handle crises, especially involving my work. I panic every time and seem never to exude the sort of resourcefulness and calm managing that the rest of you evidenced. Only once: a colleague and I were staging a major international conference and the day before an unexpected and huge snowstorm descended -- it was mid-April, scheduled just to avoid things like this -- and our participants, most of them from Germany, many never in the US before, were sent hither and yon, scattered to airports all over the country. I ended up being in charge and managing just fine. They all got here late, so we started the next day and had a wonderful time.

Otherwise, though, I do not do well with surprises like that. Now I am in the throes of preparing a jointed edited book with a colleague, on a tight deadline for getting the final version to the publisher. We have surprises every day. I feel as if I am a jumping puppet, leaping up every other second in sheer panic.

I hope I can learn from what many of you have written today.

I don't think surprises were ever high on my list, especially these days.

I am easily distracted and also feel I'm experiencing something called "destination memory loss". I know I've told the story but to whom?

Today's post made me wonder who WAS that woman I used to be who easily juggled deadlines and meetings and business travel as well as family and homemaking and entertaining. Now, at 80, any day is a bad day if I have to leave the house for ANY reason. Cancelling medical appointments is almost a hobby and every time I do so, I experience a wonderful rush of relief. Even grocery store trips get the treatment. I look into the cupboards and frig and stretch my imagination to find a way to postpone shopping for yet another day. Most non-grocery shopping takes place on the internet.

As for taking care of all that business we're stuck with whether or not we are retired---things like taxes and bill-paying and estate planning---I find that I not only want to postpone whatever I can as long as I can, but I become extremely irritated every time I even pass the desk on which the offending paperwork resides.

These days I have stepped up an already rigid dental regimen because I did cancel an appointment and I fear that even with all my care---80 years old with all my teeth in good condition---I could be hit with one of those awful dental surprises if I don't flog myself back into my normal commitment not only to good tooth care but religiously keeping appointments with my dentist. I feel so sorry for you, Ronni, and I hope that everything has returned to normal by now.

Apologize for the delayed response. On being "thrown" by the unexpected (15 Jan) -- Perhaps this is a hard-wired protective device. ( For the record, I do not at all have misgivings about growing old, I regard it as the 'next frontier.' ) But we do know that as we age, our strength diminishes, as do our vision and other abilities to sense danger, as does our reaction time. We are thus less able to react to dangers. So the protective stance? "Rapid big change? Danger! Hunker down!" It's not something to be despaired of, but just a natural way our body and mind have of protecting themselves and prolonging our existence.