Age and Me

Note:  The blog entry below is a slightly updated version of a journal entry written about this time last year.

Age. I recently realized it has something in common with sex.  At least for me.  My parents never talked about either in honest terms while I was growing up. In fact, they actually talked about age less than they talked about sex. So here I am looking sixty-one right in the face and already I've experienced surprises I was unprepared for. Just like my experiences with sex.



Hair for one. No one told me I wouldn't always have the abundant head of hair I was blessed with. When it first started thinning out I thought I had some kind of disease. The dermatologist assured me I was okay, I wouldn't go bald, and it was natural. It happens to lots of women. Was that supposed to make me feel better? And even the dermatologist didn't tell me that what goes on upstairs, also happens down!



The waistline is another. I have always been slender. My driver's license says 5'9 1/2" and 130 pounds. Both are no longer accurate. The truth is that I'm 5'8 1/2" and I haven't seen 130 in years. It's like the inch I lost in height moved directly to my waistline. I came close to weighing 130 a couple of years ago when I was on the Atkins diet. 133. It felt great but it didn't last. Now I am 140.2. That's 10.2 pounds heavier than I want to be and 5.2 pounds heavier than I'll settle for. And it's all in my waist! Abundant hair, legs and a waist. Those were three aspects of my body that were sources of pride. Now I'm down to one and even they are giving me concern. Cramping at night, unexpected stiffness if I sit too long, and the knees complain on the last steps when going from one level to another.



Breasts. Now that's a topic. I've never been endowed much less well-endowed. Add the loss of estrogen and years of gravity and what I have now is even less. Why, I ask you, couldn't that inch have migrated from my waist to my boobs?! And of course, the flatter I am on top the more pronounced the added inch in my waist. I've gone from a pear shape to a box! All angles, no curves!



Eyes. I've worn glasses or contacts for years. Really only needed them for seeing things in the distance and driving, especially at night. Now I need them for reading, too. Bifocals. Contacts, even with one prescription in each eye, are probably not going to be effective much longer.  In fact, I wear the glasses regularly now.  My vanity no longer trumps my need to see.



Sleep. I used to hit the pillow and be out for the night. I slept predictably well. Now there are nights that I swear I do not sleep. At all. What's with that?



Pills. I remember watching my parents take dozens of pills. Both medication and vitamins. I would laugh at them. I'm up to seven. Vitamin D, Glucosamine/Chondroitin, Calcium, multiple vitamin, aspirin, Omega 3, and magnesium. Whose laughing now?



Sex. I mentioned it in the first paragraph. Not a topic my parents ever discussed with me in terms of educating me about what to expect.  Rather, my dad made it abundantly clear it was something I was to avoid before marriage or there would be dire consequencs.  Yet I know my parents enjoyed sex.  Couldn't not know that living in a trailer 8' X 48'.  Add to that my mother's need to share the extent of their activity in Dad's final years, not all the details mind you, but enough to shock this oldest daughter.  My dad died of a heart attack after sex, sixty-eight. So I knew that even at sixty sex was in the picture. What no one told me was why Viagra would become the drug of choice of men over fifty. What no one told me was that my sexuality would thrive after menopause.



So, those are my aging companions. There are probably a few others. Maybe I haven't experienced them yet. Maybe I've forgotten them. Memory?! Maybe but since mine is impaired for reasons other than aging, I couldn't say. Wisdom? Absolutely, age has brought me some of that but that's for a different list.



What would be on your list?