Growing Older

I am tired of people telling me how to grow older graciously. I am doing it the only way I know how. I am doing it kicking and screaming that I want to stay young and feel great. The truth is that as I grow older I have certain aches and pains. Sure I consider myself part of the New Middle Aged Group even though I am sixty plus, but that doesn’t mean that my life is entirely pain free. How about you? Do you find that your joints don’t work as well as they used to? Is your gait when you are walking not quite as fast as it used to be?

Don’t get me wrong. I love getting older – consider the alternative, but I think it is time to stop kidding ourselves that our bodies aren’t changing as we age. Our minds are a different story. In my case I am almost about ready to start feeling like a juvenile again, how about you? Don’t worry if you are starting to do silly things. If not now then when will you get the chance? If not you, who is going to enjoy your newfound sense of freedom? It’s okay to want to feel like a kid again. This opportunity only comes along once in a lifetime so don’t blow it. You wouldn’t want to limp around looking like your great grandfather, would you?

I don’t know about you, but all this talk about aging and pain, and lost opportunities is making me hungry. That’s another thing they are trying to take away from us. I like food, I like eating, but I am not a rabbit destined to nibble my way into oblivion eating a bunch of carrots. I like real food. I have been eating it all my life, and I don’t buy any of the diet guru’s personal greedy reasons to get me to take a diet.

As I stop and think about dieting it reminds me of sex. I find I don’t spend enough time thinking about sex. Is this because I am satiated from a lifetime of sex, or is it because the new erectile pills available on the market have made sex on demand a given. It’s enough to get me to stop reading my spam emails. I don’t look anything like the pictures they use as examples anyway, how about you? How sad, I vaguely remember with pleasure when I had to work for it. I had to make an effort. Now it is sex on demand. I don’t even enjoy movies on demand. I never know which one to choose. My advice to you is to be careful with the use of those potency pills; you might end up getting so sexed up so quickly that you won’t have time or the control to find your regular partner. Then God only knows what you will do or whom you will choose. If we are not careful according to some of the advertising I have seen for these potency pills we may end up having sex at the beach, in a restaurant, and sorry I can’t remember the other place. I must be having a senior moment. Oh now I remember, I think it was walking up a long stairway or down a long hotel hallway, I don’t remember. I wish I was better at filtering irrelevant thoughts out of my mind.

Let me tell you what I think we can all do to stay younger and feel better.

We can practice best care options, disease prevention, and disease outcome management to help keep us happy and healthy.

We can acknowledge that we are not going to be able to live pain free. We couldn’t really do that when we were younger. We are going to have to learn to live with the pain.

We are going to have to understand that there is a quid pro quo for eating well and continuing to enjoy a changing sex life. I just hope I live long enough to find out what it is.

We are going to have to adjust our exercise programs to ones that our aging bodies can tolerate. I think this means less running and more walking. It definitely means less jumping through hoops at someone else’s command. Yes that’s right, I am including mental exercises too.

We are going to have to accept the fact that nutritional supplements and painkillers are going to become a way of life for those of us that want to live relatively pain free. Don’t forget to tell your doctor before they operate on you, or drug interactions could leave you bleeding all over the place.

We are going to have to continue to socialize with our peers, make new friends, and make a contribution to society if we expect to live longer, and enjoy a happy, healthy life. We are going to have to stay engaged. Have you made a new friend lately? Have you spent time with your family lately? Get out there and network.

In the final analysis, this growing older thing is just like doing anything else in your life that is important to you. You are going to have to make an effort if you want it to work. This is not a time to start getting lazy. This is a time to really enjoy your life. My goodness gracious – you are not really so old that you forgot how to enjoy yourself, are you? Let’s get out there and socialize and have a ball. That’s my answer to the problems of aging graciously. More later my friends when I find my notes.
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