Someday (if the blogger world still exists), I will look back on this current posting and hopefully laugh.
My memory is often impaired when it comes to childhood events, but one thing is for sure I remember the birthday parties and family gatherings in relation to the topic of age. There was always some comment to pass between the adults regarding the age related ills of growing older, the comments seeming to pass over our young heads. I remember laughing to myself, and feeling so lucky that I didn't have those same aches and pains, believing that I never would. Growing up and older is humbling business. The longer you live, the more you realize the frailties of humans. The skin changes, and changes in hair, there are aches and pains that come out of nowhere all of a sudden. My own frailties have come to the forefront of my life lately. I have been living with a plantar fascitis, ulcerative colitis, my knees bother me and creek when going up stairs. I can now recognize little crows feet and wrinkles on my face. I find myself kind of freaking out about getting older. I always thought I would handle the aging process with grace and beauty, that I would welcome it and embrace it wholeheartedly.
I work with mostly an elderly, aging population. I try to envision them in their early years, even 10 year earlier, how they must have looked. I ask questions about their lifestyles, not trying to pry, but trying to educate myself. Perhaps I am on the hunt for the fountain of youth, what can I avoid that has caused them to age? I reluctantly resign myself to the truths of growing older in an age obsessed society. I have found that I can control two things, my lifestyle habits.....exercise, vitamins, stress, sleep, diet, and my attitude to aging. My attitude needing to be one of grace and submission to the natural ways of life. And though my memories have failed in recollections of childhood, the topics of aging propel me forward. It is a universal, uncontrolled phenomenon that we must all endure, it is the enduring that matters!
"Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows." John Benjamin