I hit my sixties nearly two years ago and unlike previous decades, the best of which was definitely my fifties, I am really beginning to feel my age and I am becoming increasingly aware of my mortality as in, “shit – only another twenty odd years left, where the hell did that go?”
My body is falling apart – the proverbial has finally hit the fan.
When I get up in the mornings, my ankles hurt, my knees hurt, my hips hurt and until I get going I struggle down my steep stairs to the kitchen feeling more like I am ninety five never mind sixty one. Ibuprofen has become my BFF still – at least my friends have stopped telling me I`m a hypochondriac. When I walk my dog, my back hurts. Thank God for park benches.
A friend I hadn`t seen for a long time recently asked me how I was. I said, “Well – apart from the high blood pressure, arthritis, cataract, increasing deafness, tinnitus, carpel tunnel syndrome and a tendency to store water in my body which eventually results in my feet looking like cartoon feet, I`m bloody great thanks, how are you?”
My age has defined me by the changes I have made to my choices. I no longer feel the urge to break the speed limit when I am driving, I don`t hang out of the car window anymore and shout, “you stupid wanker!” to stranger drivers who have cut me up. Having been single for two years I find to my surprise that I can actually survive reasonably happily without sex in my life, something I never would have accepted even a few years ago. (I can live without sex but not without my Kindle, ha ha ha.)
Now it doesn`t bother me so much that I remain overweight and I buy clothes and shoes that are comfortable rather than fashionable. I don`t care if my lumps and bumps show. Hey – that`s me you`re looking at.
I do a lot of word searching, I say things like, “you know, thingummybob, what`sisface, oh it`s on the tip of my tongue, if I don`t think about it it`ll drop into my mind….. ”
I suppose there are some benefits to being in my sixties, for example, I can invite my friends round for a dinner party and I don`t have to knock on my neighbours` door and say, “we`ll be turning the music down at twelve.” I can say “no thanks” to invites and events that I don`t wish to attend and when anyone asks me why I can say, “because I don`t want to go. I`m getting old!” Hah!
My daughter recently brought it home to me that I am in my sixties when she sent me a text at 9:30pm which read, “mum are you still up?”
I understand entirely Helen…you have taken the words out of my mouth as my mum says. Your writing is as young and alive as ever mind xxx
Thank you so much, (this must be Julia?) xx
of course…as all our aches and pains and HBP prob run in the family!! Chin up cuz and keep writing xxx
What I meant was…i do have very similar experiences of being almost 62!!! My back kills when i go for walks with the dogs Helen and went to oseopath yesterday – got a spinal curve etc.Same trouble with my ears – drives me mad on a bad day, knees ache – and when i wake up in the night me fingers are stiff. Two wonky eyes….
Great fun!!
Just drink plenty of alcohol and if you can mange it, illicit substances as a standby. (wink) xx