Irritation attacks me when I hear old people whine about how it is Hell to get old. I'm old and it is just another change in life to get used to, as so many other changes. I've done all the things I wanted to do when I was young...well maybe not everything I might have done if I could have fitted it in...but I have lived a VERY full life. All memories worth retaining are stored in my brain; pictures, videos, and many in the minds of others who keep telling me about 'the good old days' and who constantly remind me of details I might have forgotten.
Indeed, my body is not as strong as it used to be, but do I need it to be? I no longer need to sling a wiggly child on my hip while holding a baby in my arms while trying to secure the hand of a 6 year old. Then is when I needed strength, while I was young. I didn't need a gym...I exercised carrying kids, groceries, mountains of laundry, while bending to pick up toys that always had a million parts always to be found by my bare feet, before computer games came in and rescued parents. My body doesn't need to grow a baby to term only to find out at the end of nine months and three weeks I have given birth to an 8# 14 oz., overcooked infant who plotted to walk out of my womb feet first(aka footling breach).
Arthritic pain has become a companion to rival all the figurative pains in the neck and butt I've managed to endure over the work years while I was young. Actually, the arthritis is easier to bear and my livelihood does not depend on my sucking in my opinions when I knew the bosses were wrong.
It is easy to laugh at old people who claim to be bored while I am wishing to be doing any of the ten things I could be happily doing at the moment, all at the tips of my fingers, so to speak. It annoys me to hear old people say they are lonely. They either have been around the wrong people all their lives or are bored because they are boring themselves. In this day of chats, senior centers, computers and the Internet, volunteer work, hobbies, and everything else that is available, my mind is boggled as to how someone can be bored. Then again, I can be bored when I am forced to sit waiting or listening to boring people; or when someone is trying to tell me how to live my life and how I should feel. Sermons of any sort bore me with rare exception.
My answer to people who tell me I do not act my age is, "My birth manual was missing the later life chapters". I don't mind listening to the physical ailments of my friends as long as the information is new both from and about them. When it is all they have to talk about, I stop listening and turn them off by discussing religion and politics until they are driven to suddenly remember a doctor's appointment. Above all, I have learned to avoid suffering fools. In fact, I avoid suffering anything about which I have a choice.
So, if you have to whine, whine about illness...(that's your bad luck) less than great genes, or not taking good care of your body. Some illnesses in old age could have been prevented and maybe you didn't try. If it is something you could not have prevented then accept the inevitable, try to get the best medical care within your reach, and accept the reality...ill health is not necessarily part of old age. Babies can even be born ill, and illness can come at any point in life.
And, before I forget, belly laughs kick in your endorphins...get lots of them!
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