Growing old ungracefully

There are any number of reasons why aging gracefully is difficult to do. Most of them involve denial, I think. I look in the mirror and, though I am sure these register somewhere deep within my brain, I see no flab, no love handles, no sagging belly. I somehow only acknowledge that 19 year old I once was.

Snap! Crackle! Pop!

That used to be the sound of a certain cereal. Still is. Rice Krispies. Now it's the sound of my ankles and knees. No pain, just the noise. They sound very loud. Faye can hear them. There are my footsteps and these sounds are the background noise between each step. It is a signal of problems to come, I am sure.

When I was in my pre-teens and teens, I cracked my knuckles. Just because I could. Now I don't. I was told, back then, that cracking my knuckles would lead to arthritis. Didn't happen. At least, not yet. I suspected it was a myth. Like smoking would stunt one's growth. Or eating sweets or greasy food gave one acne. Since I ate a lot of greasy food and sweets and never got more than two pimples at a time, I easily learned that was a myth. And I was grateful. Like all teens, I spent a lot of time looking in the mirror, examining my face for zits. But I was fortunate. My voice changed smoothly, too.

I thought I would age that way. Smoothly, slowly, so I could adapt to it.

Wrong.

Old age isn't creeping up slowly. It's making leaps and bounds. I can't stretch as far, bend as well, or even look over a shoulder as easily as I once did. And these came on suddenly.

Oh, sure, the stiffness might have come on slowly and steadily if I had stretched and bent, and twisted my head on a regular basis. And I would have absorbed it, adapted to it. But I didn't. Instead, I fell into that trap of "improving efficiency." Some people call it "expanding laziness."

As we age, I think we learn to do things more efficiently. Or, as we used to say, "Work smarter, not harder." I took that to heart. And I tried to attain the ultimate... no work at all. I use remote control devices. I don't lift with my knees, I get someone else to lift whatever needs lifting whenever I can.

And now? Now I can't do deep knee bends unless it's to touch my toes.