Ageing

Ageing is my issue today and I can hear you saying that we are all aging from the moment we are born and that's true, but I'm talking about the kind of ageing that suddenly emerges at a time in which the body reveals its disintegration into something less than desirable because it doesn't function as well as it used to. It's not only that we don't look the way we did when we were younger, but we can't take anything for granted. Gone is the total trust that we could run for the bus without the possibility of injury ~ these days I still run, it's a habit, but I'm often stopped dead in my tracks, not by a lack of energy but by my knee, which buckles underneath and threatens to make me fall. I find that things that were not heavy at all in the past are now a great burden. I'm sure the hill I climb on my way home is getting steeper. I've often wondered why old people walked slowly ~ I thought that they were tired, in pain, or because of their age they were in a kind of stasis that made them slow and contemplative. I suspect now, because of my own experiences that they move at that pace because they are being careful not to fall. All that walking I've done ~ because I love to be able to stop and look at a tree or study the sky and because the exercise is good for me, has caused wear and tear and my hips, which are beginning to hurt. Of course, we ignore all of this malfunctioning and just get on with things. Flashes of childhood memories jump into your mind at the oddest times ~ you suddenly remember something that you hadn't thought of for years ~ a song that was on the radio when you were three ~ the next door neighbours dog, who tried to hump you when you were eighteen years old ~ not sure where that thought came from ~ perhaps it was about my ability to be on my knees in the garden ~ don't think I could do that easily today! And when you get older you don't really care that much what other people think of you ~you have nothing to prove. I am at the stage where I can leave cleaning the kitchen floor for yet another day because I know that if I do any cleaning I'll get pain in my neck. Thank goodness that the clean police are not scheduled to visit today! I think my sense of humour has improved ~ I took a series of digital photos of myself last night ~ to document my visual aging (I trashed most of them) ~ I'm fascinated by the wrinkles and folds that have appeared, aging has turned me into a strange creature with elephant skin ~ no amount of moisturising will change that. Nothing to do now except observe.