797 - getting old

     I had a friend who said one day while looking at the skin on his hands, “oh that is how it happens.”  He had to explain and show me that his skin was less elastic and had more wrangles.   I started to watch my skin, and while I also try to have a sauna, a massage, and put some oil on my body when I am in the sun, it happens.

     The skin getting crinkly is less of an issue to myself since what I look like is less important to me than how I feel.   I have been very blessed with good genes and two parents, while different, both were driven by purpose and energy. 

     They were old when I was born, Mom 35 and Dad 45 but I saw them as more active and busy and purposeful than most of the other parents in my group.  Mom made cookies for everyone and Dad was ready to drive the group to camp, or ball games, etc.   I have also been active and busy and pushed myself to do more than most.  Even last year, at the festival I was still moving barricades in the morning. 

     The trip home from Asia this time was not easy and at the end of the final coming home process, the luggage arriving five days after I left Asia, I got a cold.  First, it was in the head, then the nosebleed period, and then the coughing and coughing and coughing.  I felt like someone had opened up the drain to my energy or I had put on cement boots.  Every step was an effort.   I looked at stuff that needed to be done and sat and watched the news or the DIY channel.  Making my food was an effort.  Going up and down the stairs was an effort.   

     I tried to set the timer for 25 min of effort toward sorting my clothes and would end up sitting down.  I went to a concert and started to cough and ended up coughing continuously for 45 min while I tried to walk down East Avenue toward my car.    I got into the car coughing and said, Grey Goose, you have to get me home as if the inanimate vehicle could understand.    I was sick.   I don’t get sick.

     I napped.  I don’t nap.    I ate what I could get a hand on and then it tasted like cardboard.  I stood at the bottom of the stairs and thought these 18 steps are no less than walking the El Comino.  The wrinkles on my hands were nothing compared to how old I felt without energy.    I thought of some of the folks that I worked with as they were aging.   My friend Elmer would say to me don’t make me go to the dining room, I am too tired.   You can do it, I would respond.  And he would use everything he had in his reserve so as not to disappoint me. He was tired and felt too tired to try.

     For almost two weeks, with my bladder not happy with my continuous coughing, my eyes running, my nose bleeding, my energy depleted, I knew what it was to feel and be old.

     When I got some homeopathic stuff from Dr. O my chiro, I started to sleep at night, my nose dried up and my cough moved to my upper chest.  My bladder was happy, and I was no longer having to change my clothes or think of depends… bonny was coming back.

     I finally figured that getting old was one thing and getting sick was another and maybe getting sick when you are getting old is the third and worse.   I move slower, and I plan more so I don’t have to backtrack my steps, but for today… I am giving myself an appreciation of being able to get up and go to the gym and try to keep what I have.