With approximately seventy six million baby boomers hitting senior citizen status, there are many of us dealing with what growing older means.
Of course maintaining good health is a big topic in the media. Exercise, diets and all kinds of advertisements to stay looking young seem to pervade the airways.
I have several health issues. Some may have been preventable if I had eaten less junk earlier in my life and others weren’t. These health issues involve pain and have forced me to develop coping skills to reduce stress, like meditation and visualization. My health is my number one priority.
These health issues haven’t kept me from noticing how I am physically aging. Not only have I gained weight due to menopause and medications, but I am experiencing definite hair thinning which is both hereditary and also from medications. I am not Christie Brinkley. But am I still experiencing some grief over the loss of my beautiful hair and my young supple body.
I realize these are very superficial losses from aging. Not much different from the wrinkles and sagging that lead so many of us to Botox and plastic surgery. So everyday I say my Thank You’s for the body parts that still work. Especially those that don’t work as well as they used to. My sight, (with glasses) hearing, legs that can still walk though not as far and knees that bend, just more slowly.
Due to my health issues, I am no longer able to workout in the gym or power walk. I am currently making baby steps toward gaining back some of the muscle tone I have lost in the last three years of illness. Just less than four years ago I had firm muscles and most important, felt great health wise. How fast things can change. Please never take your health for granted. You may think you are immune because you eat healthy, work out, take supplements etc. I have talked to many, smug in their strong bodies. Believe me, illness can happen to anyone, organic vegetarian or McDonalds drive through aficionado. People in supposed good health have dropped dead on their daily run.
I am not saying you should live in fear of Death’s angry grasp but please don’t be so judgmental of those who have experienced the bad luck of a disease they didn’t ask for. Everyone who is ill deserves our empathy whether they are Michael J. Fox with Parkinson’s or someone with lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. Death and aging happens to us all. So hopefully each of us says a big Thank You for every hour we are given.
But for the grace of God go I.
Amen on the gratitude and not taking health for granted. Having had my own illnesses, I try to use every healthy day in the best way possible. I am horrified, however, at how many Americans die from preventable illness. Not only die, but have severely impaired lives due to behaviors that can be changed. It seems suicidal to me. I don't know if that is what you mean by judgmental -- I THINK I am empathetic toward ill people as individuals -- but I do wish we were healthier, and making healthier choices, as a nation. It would go a long way toward solving this national health crisis.
ReplyDeleteI love the phrase, "smug in their strong bodies!" So fitting. On my good days I look as healthy and fit as a much younger person. On my bad days, I often look exactly the same, except inside I feel like a bowl of moldy jello with hot spears shooting through it. What gets me are those people who think that unless your health problems are visible, they don't count! You wouldn't believe the nasty looks I have gotten from people the few times I have dared to use my temporary handicap parking placard (for my last neck/back injury), which I never use unless I need to. Geez, do I have to pretend to limp and walk slower so people will know I am not faking it? You're right, Deb, things can change overnight. I guess the only way certain people will understand is when it happens to them. I'm just very grateful for the days I feel ok, and try to remember them the days I don't.
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