It's been a long time since I have posted to any blog. In fact, it looks like I have sat out an entire year and this amazes me because blogging is something that I love doing so much. I guess maybe I have felt that I've not had much to say this past year, although I was pretty vocal about this past Presidential campaign.
I now have some new thoughts about growing older, since I find myself aging rapidly. Growing older is definitely not in the "Things I Want To Do This Summer" category. And I don't see this as anything I would recommend that you look forward to. However, it is inevitable. We can't help but grow older if we continue to live. growing older does have a few perks. With age a person cannot help but gain wisdom. The longer we inhabit this planet, the more we learn and with learning comes wisdom. One just naturally follows the other. Another good point about growing older is that most people afford you a certain amount of respect and hey, there's nothing wrong with that. But there are several things about growing older that just chap my butt and that's what I want to write about.
While growing older is better than the alternative, you'll never get any argument out of me on that point growing older, in a word, sucks. First, your skin begins to sag. Then there's body parts that begin to move, droop is more like it. Things that at one time sat up straight and behaved themselves, now have dropped and landed in places that they should not be and they no longer behave themselves either. Another thing that really bugs me is that as you age you tend to lose hair. Okay, I can live without shaving my legs every time I turn around, however, there are some places that I would like to still see hair, only it's not there. And while we are talking about hair, lets move to the hair on your head. It begins to thin and then looks straggly, and the color is definitely not what it used to be. It's dull and dry and basically, just hangs there. It will no longer hold any curl, you can't style it. Well, you can, but as soon as you get up from the mirror it falls and just hangs there. Besides that, you no longer have the energy to wash it every morning as you once did. And speaking of energy, I don't have a lot of memory of what that even feels like. Seems like an hour after I am up in the mornings I need a nap. All I have to do to get tired is to think about doing housework. Oh and the memory thing! Geeze. I can remember laughing at my mother-in-law because she had lists posted all over her house. I am now my mother-in-law. I am single-handedly booting the stock in post-it notes. I have tiny colored pieces of paper stuck on every appliance in my house. One day there will be post-it's hanging on the wall, pointing the way to the bathroom. Which is a room I can't seem to stay out of. The older I get the more time I spend in there. I should move my bed in the bathroom or else learn to sleep on the toilet. And everything runs! Every orifice in my body has something running out of it. I have Kleenex stuffed in the pocket of every piece of clothes I own. When I do laundry I find tiny bits of Kleenex balls all over the bottom of the washing machine.
Every time I cough, I pee. After giving birth to three kids, my bladder must be around my knees. I have wet my pants more in the last couple of months than a 2 year old being potty trained! And if peeing were the only potty accident I ever had I might not complain so much. But there have been times, because as the Dr. puts it, I have no anal muscles left any longer, I can't control the bowel movements. More than once I have woken up ion the morning only to have to change my clothes and my bed. Fun, huh? Oh yeah, getting older can be a laugh a minute. This is what I endure to gain wisdom? Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it.
I said earlier that most people treat you with a certain amount of respect. But there are also those people who, because you are getting older have decided that with age comes stupidity and they talk to you as if you are a 2 year old. And a spoiled rotten 2 year old at that. I find that I get this mostly from my daughters. There are two lovely women and I love them dearly, however, I believe they have both decided that their mother, at the tender age of 54 has become a doddering fool or a blubbering idiot. I have one who speaks to me in a very clear, yet quiet voice and she sounds like she is trying very hard to reason with a retard. And ther other one, the younger one, she talks to me as if I am just a complete idiot. Now, don't misunderstand, neither of them do this all the time, however, there have been times when I have noticed booth of them doing this to me. And I don't like it. Yet, if I point it out to them, I am the crazy one. "Mom, you are just overreacting." "Mom, you must be tired. Why don't you go lie down until you calm down." What am I 3? Do I need a time out, or a nap?
Couple all of this with also being a chronic pain patient and you are really talking fun. This spinal disease causes pain 24/7. The only treatment for this pain is oral pain meds and because I must take this to walk, I get the fall out from that too. According to a good number of the people I know, I just like taking pills. This disease is all in my head and I am only looking for attention. Yet not one of the people who feel this way have ever made one more to learn the first thing about this disease. But they know better. Don't I wish? I resent the treatment I get from so many because of the way I am forced to live because at 22 I was so stupid that I trusted my doctor. Idiot me has even cut down drastically on the amount of meds I need to make it through the day because my daughters have told me that the meds have changed me. Have they noticed the difference? Absolutely not. And you know why? Because there is no difference. I act no differently on the meds than I do without them except that my pain level is so high that some days walking is almost an impossibility. So why have I done this to myself? Makes me wonder who is the idiot here. It sounds like it has to be the doddering old fool, doesn't it?
Anyway, these are some of my thoughts on aging. We're all going to do it, and some of us are going to do it more gracefully than others. Some of us are going to do it faster than others as in my case. Whatever way you end up aging, my best advice is to do it all with a sense of humor because of you take this mess too seriously I fear we will all lose what's left of our feeble minds.
Just my thoughts.
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