Well, I’m back...just like one of those annoying relatives who won’t stop calling. After taking a nasty fall, which I did survive…sort of, I am back to regale you with wisdom.
My latest discovery?
I am vintage.
You know, getting older comes as a huge surprise to your body.
Oh sure, you rack up the birthdays, and deep down, you know how old you are and that you are getting older by the day.
But even though you KNOW this, it still comes as a surprise when symptoms of old age start making themselves manifest. Your brain is baffled. It struggles to accept your limitations.
About 10 years ago I climbed the stairs to my attic. I began hearing a noise that sounded like crushing tissue paper. With each step I took, I could hear the noise. It was a little creepy.
I stopped and looked behind me. Nothing.
I checked the steps thinking that maybe something gross like palmetto bugs were being stomped as I climbed the stairs. But no, there was nothing.
My brain finally understood and came to the conclusion that the noise was coming from my knees.
Okay. I accepted that, gave a little laugh, and moved on.
About 5 years ago, I went into the kitchen to retrieve something. When I arrived, I couldn’t remember what I went in there for. I stood for a moment, looking around for inspiration, but just couldn’t remember why I was in the kitchen.
Again, I shook my head, laughed (a little uncomfortably), shook my head and left the kitchen assuming it wouldn’t happen again for a very long time. WRONG.
Now it happens just about every day.
Several years ago, I was getting out of the shower when my foot slipped, and before I knew it, I found myself falling. Like a giant orca at SeaWorld, I slid across the bathroom floor on my belly. Shamu the Whale would have been proud.
At first, I was shocked. How did this happen? But then, imagining what I looked like, I laughed it off. I must have been a sight. My poor brain struggled to accept that I was now older and capable of falling out of the bathtub.
Just recently, I took a fall. I climbed a step stool that I had used dozens of times, but this time, I fell.
My brain called me all sorts of names, like “idiot, stupid, dummy”, and then my husband chimed in with “You’re too old! What were you doing on a ladder?”
But I had never fallen from that stool/ladder before. What had just happened?
And while laid up, my sweet sister sent me a picture of a toy I played with as a child that was in an antique shop.
It was the subsequent doctors’ visits that hurt the most.
“Well, you aren’t young anymore, so you have to be more careful,” said one.
“This happens with people your age,” said another ‘healer’.
Sigh.
Okay, I know I have to get old, but I don’t have to like it. And I really must convince my brain that I can’t do some of the things I used to do. So I decided NOT to order the roller skates I had been wanting.
Well, here is a news bulletin for you.
You ARE as old as you feel, and maybe older.
You will NOT be spring chickens forever.
Keep a pad and pencil in your pocket at all times to write down why you need to go into the kitchen.
Be prepared to fall and start making preparations by adding bars to your showers.
And last, for the Lord’s sake and yours, don’t climb ladders!
