Gentle Reader,
In my Facebook inbox this morning came, “There’s no cure for aging, so embrace it.” I thought this is a post just for me. It sings my tune. Plays my tambourine. One of the comments let a little air out of the balloon by speaking truth to all of us songbirds of perpetual spring.
There are many aspects to aging that are, quite frankly, NOT what you are dying to experience! Knees that dare you to move in the morning, BEFORE you have taken one of countless relievers of pain. Haphazard sleeping patterns, I mean who doesn’t love to wake up feeling refreshed at 3 A.M. , but dead asleep again at 4 A.M., only to wake up AGAIN at 5 A.M., pushing away at an annoying object on your chin. That object, of course, being the book you began reading at 3 A.M. !!!
The countless solicitations in the mail letting you know that the countdown clock has slipped into fast forward. You receive reminders like refrigerator magnets for funeral homes. I have always wanted to know whom I should contact after my demise. Not to mention the number of aging services that send you click style ballpoint pens, because our little fingers find it too hard to take the cap off a Bic.
However, there are upsides. I could fill my social calendar with invitations to hear people “advise” me on the best way to invest my entitlements, a.k.a., Social Security! Are they kidding? No, but they do provide “refreshments.” What I want to know is how every hearing aid company got my address? This group is especially devious. They send out envelopes, the size and quality of an upscale wedding invitation, with your name handwritten on the envelope. They invite you, in EXTREMELY LARGE PRINT (because your eyes are also going) to come in and try on some all but invisible hearing aids. I’m wondering if they are the same kind that the Secret Service uses, you know, the ones that they couldn’t hear out of when the White House perimeter was breeched?! *snarky laugh here*
I also love my copies of the AARP and Costco magazines, with aging celebrities on the cover, who don’t EVEN look like they are aging. When you read the articles, these people are going on Safari’s, taking hot air balloon rides over the Serengeti, car racing, starting new businesses (probably using their windfall SS checks as startup money.) You’ve got to watch these “entitlement generation oldies.” They’re a slippery lot!!!!
BUT…………….. All in all, I am embracing the process. Very happy to be aging, happily!
ENJOY THE VIDEO!!!
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What’s better than the truth? The simple add-on: Very happy to be aging.
I natter on in these pages about strategies to slow the process down, to mask the symptoms or attempt to correct the problems with exercise, therapies and supplements. It seems to be a more positive approach; a going with the flow while using every available oar to navigate the rapids. Why not? I’m not in favor of the alternatives: sitting down, going deaf, searching for bigger and bigger print (I’m typing at 140% as it is. That way I don’t have to lean over to see the screen and can maintain an upright back posture. Hehehe)
Most of you, my faithful readers, are in the game to go out dancing, so let’s keep sharing our ideas for how to do that with aplomb.
Love you all,
Be well, Do well and Keep moving,
Betsy
206 933 1889
www.grandmabetsybell.com/be-well/ thoughts on how to stay healthy
www.HiHoHealth.com shopping for Shaklee products
Vivix the anti aging tonic. I love my swig every morning.
from a friend via emailtwo things– I love the old Clairol ad: “You’re not getting older, you’re getting better.” and this:
Lilies of the Field Notes:
if we can only remember how much we are loved we can be more at ease, live in this present moment and enjoy life without so much anxiety. I find that if I do actually take this to heart, mindfulness comes a lot easier… and thoughts of my eventual demise are easier to bear:
I like Peterson’s translation of Jesus’s words:
Matthew 6:26 The Message (MSG)
25-26 “If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for bringing this passage to mind. It is so radical when you think that what Jesus was about was inviting us to live outside the consumer society of Empire and consider our neighbor. My daily practice is an attempt to line up with the freedom of being unhinged from the worry of acquisition. Betsy