The Joys of Aging

The other day at work, I was talking to a friend of mine I very rarely get to speak to. We work at different times...nature of the business! Anyway, somehow our conversation turned to getting old. He is around my age. We aren't old, but we certainly aren't 20 any more either. He was saying that he somehow hurt his back and it seemed to be taking forever for it to get better. He started telling me some of his injuries that he had recently sustained. None of them major and certainly not serious enough to keep him from working, but enough to annoy. He said he remembers a time when he would totally beat up his body, go to bed and the next day he was up running and rarin' to go. Now it takes 3 weeks to recover from a papercut! haha I had definitely had to laugh at that because that is how I have been feeling lately. I seem to be getting hurt a lot lately and it is taking forever to recover! It never used to take me that long to recover...3 1/2 weeks later my foot is still not healed!

Another example of this is yesterday morning I got up early and went for a bike ride. It was the 2nd day in a row for that and it felt great to get out there and ride, other than the extreme pain of sitting on a bicycle seat 2 days in a row (I don't think I will ever get used to that!). When I got home it was early enough before I had to get ready for church, that I decided to do a few planks. I'm trying to get rid of that weight around my middle that I never used to have a problem with. So I was doing planks, did a couple of regular push ups (not girl pushups!) and did a couple more planks. I did the whole twist to the side while in plank position and all of a sudden I got a severe pain in my neck where it meets my shoulder. Oh great...I figured I would just relax and it would go back to normal soon. That was yesterday morning around 6:30 am and it still hurts! It's even giving me a headache. I really, really need someone to massage my neck and shoulders...this is when I miss having a man in my life! lol I wonder how many people can actually say they strained a muscle doing a plank...sheesh.

I was talking to another friend from work and he said he recently had a birthday...he turned 50! I asked him if he had a big party to celebrate and he said, "No...I crawled back under the covers and went to sleep." haha Priorities change I guess! He also used the old line on me, "The first thing to go is memory, I can't remember what the 2nd thing is." That is also very true. If I don't write stuff down, it doesn't happen. I missed a hair appt this month. I was thinking the other day that my hair seems to be getting kind of long and I sure do need a haircut. I had to think about it and I realized that I didn't put my hair appt in my phone so I completely spaced the appt. I have to put things in 3 places. I have a calendar hanging in the kitchen, on my phone and I have a big dry erase calendar on the door to my garage. If it's not on there, it's not going to happen! So, if I miss something with someone, it's not personal! I just have to remember to write stuff on the calendar!

I've also starting noticing changes in my body...gravity takes over and it seems to be overnight! What the???? When did that happen? I tell you what...I was told 40 is the magic age for changes. I thought that was funny, but little did I know how right they were! All the injuries I've recently sustained and how long it took me to get over being sick plus the other changes, but they weren't kidding!! The battle of the bulge also gets more difficult!

At church sitting in uncomfortable seats my back was hurting and my backside was hurting from my bike and having to sit on hard chairs. It takes me longer to get up sometimes when I have been sitting for a long time and I'm slow moving for a little bit. I guess I'm just going to have accept that I'm not getting any younger and although I need to be active and exercise, I need to be careful what I do!

Aging isn't all bad though. I'm definitely more secure in myself, I know who I am and what I want. I'm more confident in most everything I do. I know what kind of people I want to surround myself with. When I think about my age, I think of myself as being 25, not 40. I have to remind myself that I'm not 25 anymore and that was a long time ago!