The Older I Get

I remember growing up, I looked forward to growing older. When I was younger, I couldn't wait til my next birthday, my first double digit, my first 'teen' birthday, "sweet 16", 18 so I could be an  adult and then 21 when pretty much everything was legal. Now that I am older, I notice, I am no longer looking forward to getting older, in fact, I long to linger in whatever year I am currently at and cringe that time continues to roll forward.


I've noticed a few things as I do get older, there are definitely more aches and pains and those that I do get seem to last quite a bit longer than they used to. Things don't heal quite as quickly as I remember and recovery certainly takes a whole lot longer. Have you noticed that as well?

Experience teaches us that life will always continue to move on a forward momentum and often times seems to be speeding up instead of growing along in those graceful golden oldie moments. In fact, I just got my AARP card in the mail and thought why not? All these years must mean something right?Who doesn't want to take advantage of things like your senior discount, although I am not quite there just yet, but close.

I also notice how hard it is to continue along at the same pace as when you were younger. I appreciate and long for naps now. I'm not the night owl I was in my early teens and hate getting up early. For me, sleep and bedtime is now part of my favorite time of the day. It's a time for me to simply catch my breath and take a break from the demands life has placed on me during the day. I love vacations, holidays and days off from simply having things planned. I love the spur of the moment decisions and often times those are some of the best memories I have, the unplanned ones.

I often wonder what life will be like in the next five years much less ten. I know fitness and stay healthy continue to be a challenge. Every ten years our bodies metabolisms change and it becomes that much harder to lose weight than if I would have done it 10 years earlier. So much is changing and it seems like we are struggling to stay ahead of the fast pace. I fear, if we don't, we'll be left far too behind to catch up.

There are plenty of older jokes where you simply give up caring what people think of you. Age doesn't seem to be such an issue as it was when you were younger, and to that I can agree. I'm not ashamed of how old I am, but no longer am excited when someone asks either. I can see that time is a great teacher. It shows that the mistakes we make are great learning tools to ensure we don't make them again and most of all so we can share them with those around us. How quickly I notice that younger people have a tendency to write off our advice simply because they don't believe we can relate to what they are going through, and perhaps looking back, I can see I might have been the very same.

However, now I treasure the advice from those much older than I am. There is something to be said for all that time they have lived on this earth and I hope I have plenty more opportunities to not only take to those elderly around me, but to learn so much from them in the time they have left. I hope one day someone will look at me in much the same way as I am looking at my elders now. There is so much to learn from those who have gone before you. I just hope I am not too late.

Feeling Older Than Dirt Today!

Hey remember how we chatted via my blog yesterday about how I wasn't going to let things get me down and I was going to get out and enjoy all that life has to offer?

Um, perhaps not all in the course of one day?!

At least that is what I felt like last night after retiring to the sanity of my old familiar bed.

Old, older than dirt, old.

I mean feeling every bone in your body ache kinda old.

Old like you should start slow and work you way up slow, old!

The day started off brilliantly (Sounds like a line from a Harry Potter film, I can hear Ron say Brilliantly to Harry, sorry)with a great cup of coffee. We started things off slowly and didn't rush to get to making plans on our day. It was going to be a sort of challenge to just take whatever opportunity passed our way and say YES!

Well we decided if our kids were taking their roller skating lessons, we would join them for a short two hour skate afterwards. It has been about 5 years since I skated, loved doing it at the beach and something I loved since I was a teen in high school. Hubby hadn't done it in about 10 years, pre-Kailee days and our last memory of that was roller blading at the beach.

Sorry but I am a fan of the old quad wheels not inlines. My ankles and coordination skills aren't that great much less balancing all my extra weight I now have that I didn't when I was a teen.

Age kinda does that to you.

Well our kids were just tickled pink with that idea of watching mom and dad skate with them. I must say we weren't the only ones about 5 other parents were there and a bunch of kids that could literally skate circles around the things we did back in my high school days.

After about an hour we sat inhaling large quantities of water and wheezing in and out, trying to rest between a game that was in the works of being started.

I looked at my watch, then at Steve and said, "You know, we've only been doing this for an hour?"

I think he seriously stopped breathing and his eyes enlarged in his head, as bead of sweat continued to roll down his neck. "Your kidding right?"

"Nope, we still have an hour left!" I said wiping my own sweat from my forehead and fanning myself with my hand.

I think we both at that moment in time questioned our sanity but threw caution to the wind anyway.

Fast forward to the end of the night, once gravity takes control and time begins to wear thin at those muscles that haven't been put to good use in way way too long. Oh, man! Were we ever sore!

Sore, aching, plagued with enormous pain, racked with agonizing muscle aches. I am sure you get the picture.

It wasn't pretty, but we both looked at each other before toasting over water filled glasses and muscle relaxers, "It was fun wasn't it?"

"Yup, want to do it again?"

"Absolutely, if we can manage this about 4 hours a week, we'd have exercising just down pat."

"Cheers to next week. I'll call the pharmacy and refill these before we run out."

Ah all in a day's work and just loving life even if it feels like it's going to kill us.

By the way, Steve only fell once on his inlines and I managed to avoid the floor! Guess we aren't so old after all!! :)

Sounds of Aging

Yes, I realize we live in a world where we will all eventually grow older. There comes a time however, when we wake up one morning look in the mirror and it isn't the same person staring back at us any longer.

You begin to wonder, do we seriously age overnight or was last night a really bad night and these are the effects of that night?

These are the things I have begun to notice over the last year. Let's start at the top since that is what you seem to notice first because at some point we are always looking in the mirror.

The first thing was the added changes to my face in the form of age spots. Where did they ever get a name like that? How about sun spots or something a little less 'aging?"

I guess those years of spending literally all day at the beach were now finally playing a mean game of catch up. I spent entire summers, from sunrise to sunset hanging at the beach. I mean, it's where I grew up.

So the process begins of trying to hide them with make up only it really doesn't do the justice, so you try and wear your hair a bit differently. I guess wearing it hanging in your face only works in teens anymore, not quite becoming on a 45 year old.

Then I notice hair loss and dryness. I would blow dry my hair and suddenly I was shedding more hair than my cat. My hubby asked for any possible left overs of mine to glue on his. Yeah sure, like that will really help me.

So I begin to buy all this anti aging and breakage hair products to see if I can begin to keep more than I am losing. I mean bald men are quite hot in my opinion but bald women, NOT!

I notice I don't have the energy level I once did either and can't eat certain foods.

I make what my hubby and I have coined the old people noise when we attempt to put on our socks. I have discovered if you put your socks on before your pants, it's a lot easier.

We tried putting in a brick planter for our roses this weekend and realized sometimes if you keep your body in a hunched over position for too long, it does want to stick that way. I guess my parents were right, it just wasn't your silly face but you body that would eventually stay that way.

So we huff it off to the spa. We installed it for moments like this. Now we just need someone to come get us out. Life sure does have its moments as you grow old and who said it was fun! Hey, it's almost 8am, it's time for bed soon! We can't stay up like all those party days any more either. At least for now, I have someone to help me up as long as he can get up.