Birthdays Make Me OLD!

So how do you know when you are "old?" I celebrated a birthday this week, so old age is one step closer to being a reality for me. Rick and I were together on my birthday and I didn't have to fly a thousand miles for us to make it happen. That was a nice treat. We spent a good part of the day doing some "pricing" in Home Depot and Lowes. Nothing note worthy happened. That's the way I like my birthdays. We had dinner with some of the kids and Patricia made me a cheese cake that we shared.

It was an overall good day... except for some "old age" reminders. My dry eye was really bothering me. The doctor tells me I have dry eye because of my age. My eye doctor is much younger than I, and she was not very sympathetic when she blurted out her diagnosis several months ago. I want to be a fly on the wall some day when a doctor reminds her that her ill conditions are due to the fact that she is over forty. And why, on the day I turned, well, over forty again, did the employees at Home Depot turn the heat up on high while I was shopping? It was a nice warm day, they didn't need to have the heater on at all. My husband never noticed how hot it got in the store. While I felt as if I might just faint, and little beads of moisture started to form on my forehead, he walked around as cool as a cucumber. He is a smart man though. Not once did he say anything about my personal heatwave being because of my "age." I love him.

I felt old this morning when I got up. We spent the night away from home and the mattress we slept on was as hard as a rock. Before I turned forty, I never complained that a mattress was not "like mine at home," but this morning I felt like someone beat me with a bat while I slept. So am I "old?" Well, I'm not young anymore, but I can still remember when I looked forward to birthdays. I can't remember the name of a person I met five minutes ago, but I can remember how good it felt to be young.

The passing of time and the aging our minds and bodies are things over which we have no control. We can take good care of ourselves, but "old age" is gunning for all of us, and we just can't hide from it. There are some positive aspects of aging I'm sure. I just can't remember any of them at the moment!