When The Wheels Start To Fall Off

It creeps up on you slowly. Barely noticeable at first until the day you attempt to jump up out of bed and end up rolling out. Getting out of a chair is like raising the Titanic, every joint and spar of the infrastructure creaks, reluctant to leave the comfort of Davy Jone’s locker.
It’s not until I look into the mirror that the true realization (shock) of aging strikes me. Not that I do that very often mind you, maybe once a day as I clean my teeth and brush my receded greying hair. The hair started to change colour way back in my 20s, so I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it.
Must be worst for some; those who spend time putting makeup on. Looking at every crevice and crack in great detail and trying to reconcile the mental image with the physical one.
Apart from a brief look at myself after my early morning shower, I only have to content with the occasional glance from a shop window or the obscure reflection from a computer screen. Not too difficult to deal with. We all get old, but it seems to have happened oh so much quicker than I thought it would. Never mind, the change in appearance I can can cope with more or less, ( I was never an oil painting) it’s the physical decline that’s much harder to handle.

As the years bobble along so does the increasing size of the waist line. I’ve kept reasonable active most of my life, mainly through walking after the active sports stopped in my early 20s, but the weight has increased to the extent you become conscious of the bulging stomach especially when seated and the constant discomfort after eating. It’s comes across as indigestion at first, but becomes more insidious in the mind as time passes by. Hiatus Hernia or stomach cancer?

That’s the problem when you have a little medical knowledge and a vivid imagination, mole hills become mountains. Going to the toilet too often – prostate problems or diabetes. Stiff back, no flexibility – Rheumatoid arthritis or was it all that running I did years ago, wearing out out the joints, a touch of Osteo? Oh well, the days of jumping over a gate with a single bound have well and truly gone.
Is it my imagination I’m becoming a little clumsy or is it the onset of something more sinister, Parkinson or a smidgin of Motor Neuron disease?

Arrh how the mind plays tricks. But it doesn’t play tricks with my eyes sight. Blind as the proverbial bat these days. Anything thing within a metre is a blurry train crash. My constant companion is a pair of never cleaned cheap reading glasses that I invariably look over most of the time when not reading. Way too lazy to take them off. Makes me look distinguish or so I tell myself. “Is that a skin cancer on my left temple?” As they arrive on the bridge of my nose each morning.

It’s not all bad this getting old caper. I long since not worried what others thing about me. I’m resigned to the fact I’m a grumpy old so and so. You know the one at the christmas office party about to retire, always talking about the good old days (as if they ever existed) and complaining about the youth of todays total lack of respect. ( to him of course.)

My heart beat app tells me I’ll live until I’m 93, have no idea how it knows. How come I feel 93 now?
Enough whinging. Time to go for my daily 4k walk in the hot tropical sun. Not dead yet, just practicing.