They say that getting old ain’t for wimps. I should know because I’m old and a wimp. That’s not saying that I am not fighting aging every step of the way. I am working hard to stay active. I work out at least five days a week, I’m still playing softball, golf, swimming and walking. If a game of sandlot football breaks out, I’ll be on the sideline watching. I’m not that stupid. I’m just a broken hip away from spending my waning days in a rehab facility. I have been to one and I’m not ready for diapers, even though it might be better than getting up 5 times a night to go to the bathroom…oops, too much information. That’s for another time.
Why did I bring up this subject? It’s not the activity that bothers me. Once I get into a game of ball, a round of golf or something else, my mind shuts down the aches and pains and lets me play to the limits of my body. When the experience is over, that’s when the regrets kick in. As I change out of my spikes and start walking to my car, the pain starts. That sore shoulder, the gimpy knee, the arthritis in the feet or the back that is screaming, “Why did you do this to me?”
I’m not the only one suffering. My poor wife has to listen to me whining the rest of the day and night as my body rebels because my brain can not accept my body’s limitations. She does have one rule. I have to stay in good enough shape to get myself off the floor if I happen to fall. Do you blame her? Have you seen the size of me? Why would she try to lift my fat butt up after I take a tumble.
It isn’t just sports that get to me, trying to be a good guy also caused me a great deal of discomfort due to my age. A friend of ours had a fall in her very small apartment and ended up in a rehab facility. (I told you so). She has very little family and her apartment had to be packed up and her belongings made ready to be put in storage. My saint of a wife was there on day one working her backside off to get the task done. Another lady was there to help a few times but my dear wife did the majority of the work. Being the macho guy I think I am, I volunteered one day. My wife and I arrived in the morning, with the intent of staying a few hours to get the job done. We were able to accomplish quite a bit and get most of her belongings packed and move a few things down to the dumpster. To be exact, we filled the dumpster twice just that day. Thank goodness the refuse company came and emptied it right after I tossed in the bag that filled it up, the first time. I must have made fifty trips up and down from the second floor to toss bags into the dumpster. After four hours I was ready to drop. My wife was like the Energizer Bunny and kept on working. By the time we got home, I was completely wasted, I was convinced I was going to leave this mortal coil. My wife was already planning her next day at the apartment.
As a younger man I was able to work day and night lifting, hauling and climbing, then go to my other job and do the same. After getting off work, I still had enough energy to hang out with my friends and have some fun. Whoever said “youth is wasted on the young,” was dead on. (Ignore the pun.)
Thanks to guys like me the medication industry that produces stuff like Ben Gay, Icy-Hot, Tylenol and Advil is booming. These analgesic tools are being slathered and popped on a daily basis by old men like me who still believe that the bent over, pot-bellied, balding guy in the mirror can still do what he did in his 20s.
Am I going to stop trying to recapture my youth at my advanced age? Not a chance. By my next game or round of golf, the pain from this week’s adventure will have worn off and I’ll be out there trying to be my 30 year old self again I will also be bent over with a severe case of hurts for the next couple of days before I do it again. There is another old saying, “Those who do not study history, will repeat it.” Now that hurts.
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