When Did I Get Old?
I didn’t sign up for this. I was supposed to always have a full head of hair and half decent looks. I wasn’t supposed to have enough loose skin to create another person or a belly that can be seen from space. Somewhere along life’s journey, Mother Nature got mean, and I’m not sure when it happened. At my age the years all blend together.
Whenever I see myself in a photo now, I cringe and want to ban whoever took it from using a camera for life. There should be laws against taking photos of people my age. When my mother was in her later years, she used to take a pair of scissors and cut herself out of any pictures she was in. On one visit to our house she went through an entire album and eliminated herself from every photo. I now understand why she did that.
When you are young and get a cold or an unexpected pain, you don’t think anything of it: that’s because you know it will end soon. At this point in life, you start fretting about some terminal disease that may be on the horizon. Getting out of bed or a chair can be the biggest challenge you face each day. Aches and pains are an every day occurrence, and you embrace the ones when Advil or Aleve isn’t required.
Entries on the calendar have evolved from parties and nights on the town to doctor and dentist appointments. Whenever we get together with people now, the conversation usually centers around the most recent ailments or operations. In the senior community where we live, if you see a vehicle leaving the neighborhood after 7:00 p.m., it’s either a visitor or an ambulance.
As you grow older, you don’t want to acknowledge another birthday because the mental part fuels the physical part which can result in a trip to the medicine cabinet for the anti-depression medication.
Whenever you turn another year older, people like to say it beats the alternative. I guess that’s true, so rather than continue to lament the aging process, I think I will pour myself a glass of wine to help me hang on.
enough