23 June 2022 ~ MILD - AGE - LAMENT; MAJOR - AGE - GRATITUDE
“It sucks to be eight.” The response of our youngest when her request was turned down by her mom. That 8-year-old now has her own wings and is a flight attendant. Our older daughter is expecting her first child this September. Both enjoying life in their upper 20s. Our oldest is a boy; well, he’s a man in his early 30s and is enjoying his career in the military.
Where does that leave me and my lovely bride, Jane, of 36 years? Old. Not Jane; me! She’s still a foxy lady in her 50s.
My version of old, when young, was turning 64, a-la Beatles. I am bloody here! I have arrived! My brain is ‘time-locked’ in my 30s/40s, but my body knows where I am on the old-geezer scale. Though wiser with age, the trade off is living in an older body, that took a beating as a younger body. When I was living in that younger body it allowed me to go crazy; I played all kinds of sports with football (soccer) as my favourite. Mobility was only ever an issue when wearing a plaster cast from a sports injury; I had a few of those. Along the way I accrued a couple of replacement artificial knees and there’s other hardware (plates, screws, etc.) in various locations.
Mild-Age-Lament
Therefore, my mild lament on age is just that; mild. I am slower now than I was then. But, at 56 years older than 8, I can still get from here to there. The treatment is easy for an ageing body; move it. I would prefer to live in a younger body, but you can’t, however by exercising daily, I still have periods of the day where all aches and pains are drowned out by the endorphins of well-being because I am so mobile and still able to exercise.
This mild lament is not about me living in an older body, it is more on watching others living in younger bodies and not using them to their full potential. Not everyone, of course. But I would love to be able to run a 10K again.
Major-Age-Gratitude
Age is the ever-changing sum of the constant totalling of time. With age, I have lost friends and family members. Some took their natural course of events; others were cruelly mis-managed by the sands of time.
For me, my nemesis of age is just a worn-down body from enjoying life to its fullest. No regrets. And incredible gratitude for my health and my life and my 64th birthday!
Still, when I must go up the two flights of stairs to retrieve an item at home, I always ask myself whether it could wait until I really need to!
