My mother warned me that things change as we get older so I should enjoy my youth. And I certainly did. But youth is fleeting and now ~ I find my arms are no longer capable of extending things I want to read far enough away from my eyes so I can focus on the material at hand. Wonder why ones arms grow shorter as one grows older? What’s going on?! Is this the reality of the old saying…‘Life’s too short?’
My teeth seem to be growing longer or maybe it’s that my gums are beginning to recede. Does this bode of the old saying…‘Getting long in the tooth?!’
Department stores, supermarkets and my friends all seem to be keeping their thermostats turned up way too high. Is all that heat really necessary? And why are they so inconsistent in the way they go about regulating a body’s temperature? Up, down. Up, down. What are they doing? One minute it’s so hot I find myself perspiring and the next thing ya know, everything’s fine.
Certainly these phenomena have nothing to do with the skin under my upper arms. It is no longer as firm as it used to be. Instead it has grown longer rather than shorter so when I’m expected to applaud it flaps when I clap.
The once fresh face of youth is giving way to the sands of time. Wrinkles are creeping in all over the place at a pace much faster than the Europeans can crank out ‘exclusive collagen compounds.’ Those debonair laugh lines on my man are turning into no laughing matter on this woman!
And those rings around the neck area are causing a problem, too. We’re not talking ‘ring around the collar’ here. It’s either wear a turtleneck on a daily basis or be counted like the rings on a tree.
The hair color products that advertise, ’I’m worth it’ are having a tough time proving their claims on this old girl…covering up the aging process has become a sight more difficult than ‘nice and easy.’
And muffin top syndrome has become a reality. “Try exercise,” you say. How old are you? Just wait. When you get to this point in your life you’re too tired to exercise. Either that or you’re so out of shape you recognize that your efforts are in vein, varicose and otherwise. All these fitness programs don’t stand a chance of any free advertising from this veteran. I say to Richard Simmons, “Go ahead and exercise your heart out. I’ll be on the couch reading a good book.”
The only silver lining in the dark cloud described above is that wisdom comes with age. So, oh boy, am I ever smart! And I will continue to get smarter ever day. I will also continue to get more wrinkles, more gray hair and more pounds. Looks like Mom was right.
Originally published in the November 2011 issue of The Cross Timbers Gazette.
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