Age! It's something I've grown accustomed to but my attitude toward it has shifted. Really, it's made a one hundred eighty degree turn!
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to become an adult. The thought was magical in itself. I chafed all the time between 18 and 21, waiting to be free to follow my new found religious fanaticism and immediately hauled my rear end off to Pasadena and enrolled in Ambassador College. Nearly twenty years later, that all came crashing down around my ears. My marriage ended a short time later.
I eventually found my way into a new career and the independence of being self-employed, remarried, moved to Arizona. The whiplash-like changes of direction in my life kept on until I'm now here in Cottonwood, semi-retired and still evolving.
Now, with the end approaching, I have an entirely different view of accumulating years and, especially, the physical effects. What energy I used to have! I had a long stride and was so full of dynamic energy that people huffed and puffed to keep up with me on a walk. Stairs and escalators were too slow! I walked up escalators and ran up stairs. Quite a contrast to how I shuffle along now and guard against things like steep slopes that could cause me to lose my balance. I now love elevators. So far, I don't need a cane, and I cringe at the thought of a walker, but I know that if I live long enough, both are in my future.
I tried hormone replacement to reverse the trend. Didn't work and was costing a mint. My body now converts much of any testosterone I do get into a female hormone, and it takes a special expensive drug to reverse that, and who knows what damages that drug is really doing to the body? Not a real problem as there is very little testosterone to convert, but it may contribute to less skin aging than many other men seem to experience at my age.
Unlike in my youth when aging was anxiously yearned for, I now wish I could find a viable way to turn back the clock to the bull of a man I used to be. I remember exactly when the dramatically noticeable energy decline set in. It was my 58th year. I had all my life been so uptight with energy that I constantly chewed my fingernails to a nub. It all ended that year, and I haven't been a nail gnawer since.
It's now twenty years later and I'm content to sit for hours and basically do very little physically. The intensity has ebbed. Love is still there, but not the old physical passion.
I try to take it all philosophically and realize I'm much luckier than many others my age -- many of whom are no longer among the living. Others have very debilitating health conditions from which I have so far been spared. I'd like to fight back and whip the enemy, but this old fighter knows when he's outflanked, outgunned and out everything else.
So, I'll just take life in the best stride I can muster, but I do wish there were some way to make that clock run a little slower. Funny thing. It sure seemed to way back then.
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to become an adult. The thought was magical in itself. I chafed all the time between 18 and 21, waiting to be free to follow my new found religious fanaticism and immediately hauled my rear end off to Pasadena and enrolled in Ambassador College. Nearly twenty years later, that all came crashing down around my ears. My marriage ended a short time later.
I eventually found my way into a new career and the independence of being self-employed, remarried, moved to Arizona. The whiplash-like changes of direction in my life kept on until I'm now here in Cottonwood, semi-retired and still evolving.
Now, with the end approaching, I have an entirely different view of accumulating years and, especially, the physical effects. What energy I used to have! I had a long stride and was so full of dynamic energy that people huffed and puffed to keep up with me on a walk. Stairs and escalators were too slow! I walked up escalators and ran up stairs. Quite a contrast to how I shuffle along now and guard against things like steep slopes that could cause me to lose my balance. I now love elevators. So far, I don't need a cane, and I cringe at the thought of a walker, but I know that if I live long enough, both are in my future.
I tried hormone replacement to reverse the trend. Didn't work and was costing a mint. My body now converts much of any testosterone I do get into a female hormone, and it takes a special expensive drug to reverse that, and who knows what damages that drug is really doing to the body? Not a real problem as there is very little testosterone to convert, but it may contribute to less skin aging than many other men seem to experience at my age.
Unlike in my youth when aging was anxiously yearned for, I now wish I could find a viable way to turn back the clock to the bull of a man I used to be. I remember exactly when the dramatically noticeable energy decline set in. It was my 58th year. I had all my life been so uptight with energy that I constantly chewed my fingernails to a nub. It all ended that year, and I haven't been a nail gnawer since.
It's now twenty years later and I'm content to sit for hours and basically do very little physically. The intensity has ebbed. Love is still there, but not the old physical passion.
I try to take it all philosophically and realize I'm much luckier than many others my age -- many of whom are no longer among the living. Others have very debilitating health conditions from which I have so far been spared. I'd like to fight back and whip the enemy, but this old fighter knows when he's outflanked, outgunned and out everything else.
So, I'll just take life in the best stride I can muster, but I do wish there were some way to make that clock run a little slower. Funny thing. It sure seemed to way back then.
Hearing you loud & clear, OLD friend! Time itself simply doesn't act the way it did when we were young.
ReplyDeleteJust know that with your decade lead on me, you are ever an inspiration; I will do my best to mimic your energy and life force as long as the physical systems hold out.