Tag Archives: aging

Regenerating the Elders: Stemming the Tide

Posted on November 22, 2019 | 1 comment

The Platelet Rich Plasma is the yellowish substance. The stem cell is the clear liquid.

My husband and I have gotten into regenerative medicine big time. Both of us just had stem cell therapy.

Regenerative medicine is defined on Google as: “the branch of medicine that develops methods to regrow, repair or replace damaged or diseased cells, organs or tissues. This field holds the promise of regenerating damaged tissues and organs in the body by replacing damaged tissue or by stimulating the body’s own repair mechanisms to heal tissues or organs.”

I damaged my left knee this past summer. The MRI showed three tears in the meniscus, plus osteoarthritis and inflammation.

“Get a replacement,” my husband ordered.

I’d just nursed him through a total hip replacement and wasn’t anxious to become the one in the hospital bed. So, I started with SynVisc injections. SynVisc is made of hyaluronic acid that helps cushion and lubricate your joints, (which in my case had become as dry as the Sahara).

“If SynVisc doesn’t work, the next step is PRP. Then stem cell therapy,” the orthopedist said.

“What’s PRP?” I asked.

“It stands for Platelet-Rich Plasma therapy. You can look it up on Google,” he said as he injected my knee.

So of course I went to Dr. Google. “PRP is a form of regenerative medicine that can harness healing abilities and amplify the natural growth factors your body uses to heal tissue. Plasma is the liquid portion of our blood. Platelets, also called thrombocytes, are blood cells that cause blood clots and other necessary growth healing functions.”

Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy uses injections of a concentration of a patient’s own platelets to accelerate the healing of injured tendons, ligaments, muscles and joints. In this way, PRP injections use each individual patient’s own healing system to improve musculoskeletal problems.

So there, I knew what PRP therapy was. I had a feeling I was going to need it although over a ten-week period, the SynVisc improved things. I could sleep without too much pain and I could walk again—almost two miles. But I was definitely not perfect.

Meanwhile, my husband had had pneumonia and was mistakenly prescribed Levaquin, a super antibiotic with an unfortunate side effect in people over 65—it can damage the person’s tendons. And it did. Moe could barely walk because of the damage, let alone play golf.

This is what brought us limping into the doctor’s office in Kona, Hawaii. The doctor examined us and went through our health histories and blood tests. On the next visit, he suggested PRP and a stem cell for my knee. For Moe, he suggested stem cell therapy in the blood stream.

“It’s experimental, but we’re having phenomenal results,” he said.

Last Friday, the doctor drew my blood (I have stingy veins—he said something about a turnip) then put it in a centrifuge. After about 45 minutes, he injected PRP in my right knee. Then he injected my left knee along with a stem cell.

All was super easy in my right knee. In my left knee—so painful!!

“That’s because you have so much inflammation in that knee,” the doctor explained as I moaned.

My husband and I have been having intravenous vitamin infusions every couple of weeks since September. We have a “Myers’ Cocktail” that contains magnesium, calcium, B vitamins, vitamin C and magnesium. After, there’s a small infusion of Glutathione. These infusions enhance the immune system, reduce fatigue, and help with seasonal allergies plus other benefits. Since my husband was already hooked up, the doctor injected the stem cells for him right into the IV—no pain for him!

“When will we see results?” I asked the doctor as we left his office.

“Your knee is working day and night on a microscopic level to improve tissue health. Most patients can see more significant improvements at weeks 4-8 and 12+ weeks post injection,” he said.

Four to eight weeks!!!!! OMG!!!

Now, it’s only a week later. (I’m sure it’s been a least a month). I’ve been under instructions to rest my damaged knee. Tomorrow I can start a mile walk every other day. For someone who’s used to walking at least three miles a day, it’s taken a lot of patience to stay away from my Nikes. But I want to give this procedure a chance. I’ll let you know what happens.

1 Comment

Posted in Aging with Grace, Babybooming

Tagged aging, blog, PRP, regenerative medicine, stem cell therapy

Senior Class: Shape Shifting

Posted on November 11, 2019 | 2 comments

Where does the time go? It’s really throwing me. My oldest grandson will be 22 next month! It seems impossible that he has been around that long! I still think of him as that towheaded toddler that I could carry in my arms. Now I need a grocery carrier cart to bring in a bag of groceries. Also, I can’t believe the last time I wrote in my blog was October 19! Not only are the years rolling along at warp speed, so are the weeks. Thanksgiving is around the corner so I better write a little bit right now.

First, I want to check in with my hair buddies, especially those who had alopecia effluvium like I did last fall. My hair came back strong with the use of products like Rogaine and the Nutrafol supplements. But I recently have seen some thinning again. It may be just a shedding time of year, but my hair follicles aren’t that plentiful so it shows!

I’m trying hard to be copacetic with all the bodily changes overtaking me but the shape shifting is becoming more pernicious. One good thing–I have a waist again. I was without one for about 20 years. I noticed this the other day when I got out of the shower. “Wow,” I said aloud to myself. “That’s cool.” Then I saw the reason why. My hips have gotten very hippy. As in “you can grab a handful” on either side. So it’s all perspective. Which I don’t have that much of.

When I commiserated with a friend she said, “But that’s not so bad. At yoga this morning when I was doing downward dog, I saw that my arms had been replaced with my mother’s arms. How did they get so crepey?”

“It is creepy when that happens,” I said. “But if you think about it, you’ve been lucky to have collagen in your arms for so long. You haven’t seen my arms for fifteen years.”

“Come to think of it, you’re right about that,” she said.

“I think we need to learn to accept ourselves at this age,” I said. “Otherwise, we’re going to be constantly in mourning.”

“You’re right again,” she said.

“I want to be happy with myself at this age,” I continued. I was on a self righteous roll. “But I’ve decided not to have my cataract fixed. I really don’t need to see everything that clearly. And I don’t drive at night anyway.”

2 Comments

Posted in About Life in General

Tagged aging, aging with grace, aging with wisdom, body changes, shape shifting

When did I start Creating Stories?

Posted on February 21, 2019 | Leave a comment

People often ask me when I started writing. I seriously began when I was in seventh grade, writing poetry. But I started story telling much before that. I remember creating stories for my sister when we were little. They were always dramas involving our paper dolls, who survived only with the help of scotch tape.

Recently when I should have been writing, I got caught by an internet website, which showed famous people when they were young and what they look like now. A couple of them were photos of our movie star paper dolls.

This is Arlene Dahl who is now 93. I read up on her–six husbands and three children. She is very into astrology and is still very beautiful. Of course being me, I wanted to change her eyebrow color immediately. A little microblading?

Ann Blyth was another movie star paper doll who had adventures in our playroom. She was born in 1928. At 90, she’s still a stunner! She’s the mother of five children.

I still remember when my mother gave me a dollar to buy ground round for meatloaf for our family of five. I walked the mile to the grocery on Broadway, feeling very important. There was enough money left for me to go next door to the drugstore and buy paper dolls. What a luxury.

Superwoman Bites the Dust, Part 2

Posted on October 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

You know how people say, “Listen to your body,”? It occurred to me this morning that I rarely do that. Instead I say, “Listen, body, do what I want.”

Since I had pneumonia, I must have had fifty people say, “Listen to your body.” I jokingly reply that the doctor should never have diagnosed walking pneumonia because I just kept walking around. Instead, she should have said, “Cindy, you have ‘going to bed and resting pneumonia.” I’d end up in bed only because I couldn’t do anything else, and I’d feel guilty about it.

Although I’m much better (I’ve turned the corner!), I’m still a work in progress. I may start off well when I get up, but I can hit the wall at about 11:00 A.M. Then I might be done for the day. So I’ve been trying to short circuit the fatigue by resting before I’m overcome by exhaustion. I make plans for what I can do—things that I never counted before like going to the market or dropping stuff at the cleaners.

When I walked this morning, I got quiet and went inward. I tried to listen? What was my body saying? It was hard to perceive any instructive advice because I’d turned that voice off years ago.

“How the hell should I know?” were the only words that came out—and those were from my mind. Which continued: “You can walk a little farther. You should be able to! You were walking five miles some days before. You need the exercise—you gained weight on your vacation! No pain, no gain! Don’t be a sissy!”

All of a sudden Dr. Phil was there in my head too. “And how’s that been working for ya?” he asked.

When the pulmonary specialist had said, “Don’t push yourself. Don’t walk too far so you’re too tired to walk back,” the words floated to my memory bank but not my conscious decision making center.

But Dr. Phil’s a big guy. His booming voice stood out in the crowd of bullies in my brain who urged me on. So I listened to him and turned towards home.

There’s more to this never-ending story, which I’ll share later. It includes chest X-rays, CAT scans, blood tests, pulmonary tests, inhalers, netty pots and a “No cancer,” diagnosis. It also includes me needing to make an attitude adjustment, which I’m working on. It’s hard to give up the feeling that you’re invincible. I don’t like it.

Believe it or not: I Found a Hair Volumizing Product that works!

Posted on July 20, 2017 | 2 comments

This is a message for those of you who are folliclly-challenged. The rest of you who have full, thick heads of hair probably won’t be interested, including my sister who was handed out all the hair anyone could ever want at birth. She still has lots of hair she can have fun with.

I, myself, would do almost anything to have thicker hair…and I probably have. I can resist other types of products but if anything has “MORE VOLUME” written on it, I buy it. I have more products under my sink than Johnny Appleseed had seeds.

Some of these things above have been helpful but I want to announce that I have found a new hair produce that actually seems to work: Toppik Hair Fattener.

It is giving my limp, lifeless strands more body! Just a little before I blow dry and my hair is so much thicker. How it works, I don’t know. I’m just seeing with my own eyes that it does.

I am obsessed by hair. When I’m in a crowd, after I’ve checked that no one is carrying a suspicious package, I’m checking out everyone’s hair. I can honestly say it’s the first and last thing I notice about a person. “Why can’t I have a swinging ponytail?” I mutter under my breath as I watch a woman walk by. “Why can’t I have a thick bob?” I whine to myself. You can’t really let people know how you feel about this, especially when there are children starving and good friends are losing all their hair to chemo. But, I know I can confide in you.

My story of hair deprivation begins early and with a mother who had scads of hair. You can see that she’s already wondering if the bow will cover the bald spot. I’m already questioning the fairness of the Universe: why I didn’t get the thick hair genetics?

By nursery school, my hair wasn’t lush like my friend, Chi Chi’s in the foreground, but it wasn’t bad except for the bangs. I’d suffered a burn to my forehead so the bangs had to be short.

Grade school I don’t know how my hair looked because I didn’t care. By the end of high school I got interested, but the results were mixed.

In the Sixties, big hair was in. Everyone teased and sprayed and wore these little dome wiglets on top of our own hair.

I wore one at my wedding:

That began my life long love of wigs and falls. Here my granddaughter is modeling one.

An extension of the wig is extensions, which I adored when I wore them. Unfortunately, they are hard on the hair, creating more hair loss.

My amount of good hair days compared to bad is miniscule. My hair is not only thin, it’s baby soft. Also it has just enough curl to cause problems, better known as frizz. My hair won’t stay down or straight. ( My oldest granddaughter and I were measuring the other day to see how tall she is now. My son said if you discounted my Afro, she’s as tall as I am.) My hair is unable to withstand humidity or a windy day. If anybody touches it, they run the risk of great personal injury. I almost divorced my husband once when he insisted on driving his father’s classic 280SL with the top down to a party. Has he no sensitivity?

In order to counter effect my reality, I wear a lot of hats. And once I wear a hat, I can never take it off until I get home. If anyone playfully tried to take it off, they’d probably lose a hand.

I grade photos of me on how good my hair looks. Here’s a couple of examples:

You might think I like this photo because my little grandsons who are now 18 and 19 look so adorable. No, it’s because my hair looks great!

Here’s another one. You might think I like it because I’m with Charles Schultz at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference–nope, I like my hair.

I do like the following one because I had a great lunch with Judy Blume, but also my extensions looked fabulous:

You might think I like the next one because it records a very special time, but get a load of my hair! It looks amazing! It lasted through the B’nai Mitzvah ceremonies and then it was toast for the next ten days.

You might think I like this one because I’m surrounded by my family. I do, but the hair is the main thing–it looks thick!

Besides just having lousy hair, I have a long and sad history with hair loss. Each time I had a kid, my hairline receded a bit. I had a widow’s peak before them.

Widow’s peak was gone after. (I wanted to have three kids, but I guess it was prudent that we stopped at two.)

When I had malaria, my hair fell out in handfuls. And then grew back sparsely. That’s when I joined the American Hair Loss Association.

My dermatologist saved my sanity when she suggested Kenalog injections. She felt that the malaria had sent some of my follicles into a dormant state and they could be “reawakened.” Yes the injections hurt but they worked!!! And yes, I’d do it again in a second.

This is the photo I had my daughter take of me a couple of weeks ago, trying to show I was getting better from the virus. Actually, we had to do it that night because I’d had my hair done earlier in the day and it looked good. No matter that I needed my bed, I wasn’t going to waste any opportunity.

So now you know more about me, probably more than I’d reveal on an every day basis. Probably TMI, actually. But if you’re interested in any other products I’ve found useful, just ask. Oh, and for those of you who have oodles of hair

and tell me how difficult it is to take care of, (you know who you are) be nice to me and others like me. You never know when we’re carrying scissors.

2 Comments

Posted in About Life in General, Aging with Grace, Searching for Wisdom

Tagged aging, beauty, family, female patterned baldness, haiir loss, hair, hair treatment, hats, humor, illness, insecurity, Kenalog, love, self confidence, technology, truth, vanity

All About Me! or Get Her Well and Shut Her Up!

Posted on June 27, 2017 | 5 comments

Since there’s nothing happening much in the news, I thought I’d give you all an update on my health! I mean, let’s keep what’s important in perspective, right?

I’m well into week 5 of this virus, no pun intended. I do think I turned a corner last week in that I’m not as flat-out sick as I was. But still, once I start feeling tired, I’m done. There’s no cushion to the fatigue. And once it comes, so does the cough, which tires me out more.

I’d like to first say that I have so much more compassion for people who have chronic illnesses. And I’d like to say that I’m sorry for not understanding how debilitated a person can be. I now understand why people become incommunicado—it’s just too much work to get in touch. It takes too much energy to go to lunch or even have a manicure. I don’t mean to say that my virus is on the par of chronic illness—I fully realize it’s just a virus. But it’s given me a taste of what people go through.

I think it also gave me a taste of what I may be like when I’m old, in my late 90’s. Right now my energy bank is not very full. I rest a couple of hours a day, especially if I have to go to an event. Otherwise, I wouldn’t make it. I make tradeoffs, also. If I’m going to go to the grocery store, I can’t take a walk or go to yoga. Not enough energy to cover both.

But I’m grateful that I’ve been able to do the important things this month. I made it to my grandson’s high school graduation and to my granddaughter’s dance recital. I made it to my daughter’s birthday and to our neighbor’s birthday. I made it to the family celebration of birthdays, Fathers Days, graduations and anniversaries. I even finished the chapter I’d been working on.

I couldn’t eat much with this virus—too tired and slightly nauseous from the fever—so I lost a few pounds. (there has to be a silver lining!). My brother saw one of the family celebration pictures and thought I looked too thin.

So last Friday, after I had my hair cut, I put on a lot of make up and had my daughter take my picture. That way I could show Steve I felt much better.

One disturbing thing I realized during this siege is that if you don’t feel well, you make a lot of mistakes. My mind was kinda fuzzy—from the virus or the meds, I don’t know. I tried to keep going and accomplishing, but I’d come back to find out I hadn’t actually finished a task or had not done something correctly. Imagine if I were your pilot! Or your lab technician.

I want to thank everyone for the good advice, encouraging words and help. I did go to the doctor three times and I did get a chest X-ray. I did take more vitamins and kept up my fluids. Part of it was fear engendered by midnight coughing fits. Didn’t Jim Henson die of pneumonia? I’d think as I chugged cough medicine. Oh, and that reminds me. I had a lot of trouble with cough medicine—I tried it with codeine and I had weird dreams and sores in my mouth. And most over-the-counter ones have sucralose in them, of all things.

A final thought: I realize as I read this over, that I must be very grateful to be such a healthy 71-year-old. If I can complain so much about this virus, I’m mostly in good health! I may be a rust bucket but I have classic lines!

5 Comments

Posted in About Life in General, Aging with Grace, Searching for Wisdom

Tagged aging, celebrations, children, compassion, dance recitals, family, flu, grandchildren, health, high school graduations, humor, senior citizens

Too Cool For School? Not Me

Posted on May 8, 2017 | 2 comments

I don’t know about you, but I have an affliction: when I try to be cool, I end up looking like a fool.

I think this all started at the end of junior high. Until that time I was a confirmed bookworm who never had time to think of things like being cool—my nose was always in a novel so I rarely registered where I really was in time or place. Nor did I care about how I looked or what I wore. Not until the day I saw Gloria wearing a cool sweater with a dickie collar. Wow, I really wanted one!

The poodle skirt phase was before my time, but I craved having a dickie collar.

I think I probably also wanted to look like the girl in the picture below. She was so white–so American. From her loafers to her plaid skirt to the shutters on her house, she personified the kind of girl who scared me to death. But I wanted to imitate.

Next thing I knew, I really wanted to shop at the Bon.

None of this was happening for me as my mother was against all of it. She thought shopping at Lerner’s was just fine for me. Somehow I wangled white bucks out of my dad.

The coolest was the white buck bag that accompanied them—it came out in almost every class so I could apply a little of whatever that powder was to my shoes, whether they needed it or not.

My mother did loosen up enough to buy me pedal pushers and saddle shoes, which was a great victory.

I was 14 when I started high school—being young was a disadvantage to coolness. I joined this high school sorority to be cooler and started smoking to be cooler still. But it really didn’t work.

I still wasn’t cool. Which was fine at Garfield High School. Just getting to go to school there was cool enough.

In my heart of hearts, I was still a nerd who loved being in the library more than anything.

This continued on into college. I loved to study. Well, maybe not loved—but I admit to liking it a lot. At the University of Washington, I used to study at Balmer Hall—it had big tables where I could spread out my books, notebooks, three pens with different colored inks, index cards and ruler. I remember one day acting very cool as I walked by a group of guys, pretending not to see them. I walked straight into a huge ash can that tipped over, spreading sand and cigarette butts across the floor. I can still hear the clang of the metal as it bumped over the floor. Not so cool, after all.

As I get older, a lot of my “too cool for school” episodes involve falls and/or being a know-it-all. My mother always said, “Pride goes before a fall,”—it seems my karma is to act that out again and again. It’s not that I’m unsteady on my feet…yet. I go to yoga to practice my balance and work out to keep my strength up. No, it’s more that I don’t pay attention to my surroundings.

Usually, before it happens, I’ve just congratulated myself on my fitness, and that my skinned knees and elbows have finally healed. (It takes so much longer now.) I’m thinking things like, I’m doing pretty darn well for a 70-year-old!

Like on our 50^th anniversary. I wore a flowing dress and my new diamond ring—I felt youthful and beautiful.

As we walked up a few stairs into the oceanside restaurant, I was handed a glass of champagne. How sophisticated and cool is this, I thought.

I stepped forward to take the champagne, not realizing I was on the edge of the lanai. Yes, I stepped into empty space. I tried to get back onto the stair and keep my balance, but couldn’t quite do it. I started falling backwards and decided the wisest course was to just go with it. Fortunately it was only a short distance into the flowerbed. The horrified onlookers did give me points for the gracefulness of my descent. Except for a few scratches and a rip in my dress, I was just shaken, but unhurt.

My final point about being cool or being a fool concerns my fondness for getting things right. It’s not that I say, “I told you so,” (although I do roll my eyes quite a bit). Like when we were traveling in the Galapagos and Peru with friends. I was wise and ate according to the rules we’d be given. The rest of them ate off the street and tried the national dish, guinea pig. What fools, I thought, as they all succumbed to Inca Revenge, and asked to borrow Imodium.

I, on the other hand, was so cool that I had nary a stomach cramp. Until we got home. Then the 105 degree fever that goes with malaria hit me. Not so cool after that.

Another problem is that I try to stay current technologically: I’m so cool that I use the Internet all the time. This leads me to buy gadgets, which I can’t figure out how to use. Like this electric wine opener. You have to admit it looks cool and very high tech, but I can’t even figure out how to put it in the charger unit. Now, I don’t know what to do with it.

I hate to say it, but being cool is just not my thing. At this point, it’s a battle to keep from making that old saying true: There’s no fool like an old fool! 🙂

2 Comments

Posted in About Life in General, Aging with Grace, Babybooming, Searching for Wisdom

Tagged 50th anniversary, aging, aging with grace, being cool, embarrassing moments, falling, gratitude, growing up, humor, keeping fit, laughing at yourself, pedal pushers, poodle skirts, self knowledge, the fifties, the Sixties, yoga

Need to Know Basis

Posted on March 2, 2017 | 3 comments

I want to start worrying about getting old again. I want to worry about my crow’s feet turning into pigeon’s feet. I want to feel bad that when I wave my arm, my sagging skin keeps flapping like a loose sail. I want to worry about whether I should be buying a cemetery plot rather than worrying if there’s a plot to bring down America as I’ve known it.

I want to worry about not being able to remember anyone’s name. Is it dementia creeping up on me or overload? Because all of a sudden I need to know a lot of names that I just took for granted before.

I can be naïve—I used to think banks existed for me to deposit my money in. Bankers were there to help and protect me. That’s what I thought about our government too. I thought the elected officials would act in the best interest of the country as a whole. So complacent was I that I didn’t worry about officials’ actions or know their names. I admit I still don’t want to know the name of the Speaker of the House is Paul Ryan or the senator from New York is Amy Schumer’s cousin. I don’t want to know that Mitch McConnell is from Kentucky. I’d like to feel everything was going to be all right and I could obsess over my bunions.

I want to worry about my weight. That would be so refreshing instead of worrying about my granddaughter taking ballet at our local JCC. And I’d like to fret about whether I should join the American Hair Loss Association or just quit coloring my hair.

I’d like to have trouble falling asleep at night thinking about how time is flying rather than thinking about neighbors who could be deported in an instant. I’d like to have time to think about whether Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty screwed up because they are old farts instead of needing to think nonstop about the deep divisions in our country.

I’d like to worry again about how short a skirt a woman my age can wear. And whether I can read a Jodi Picoult book without getting my heart broken. I’d even like to worry about how I can get my husband to drink enough water. That I know is a lost cause. I just hope our country isn’t.

3 Comments

Posted in About Life in General, Aging with Grace, Babybooming, United States

Tagged aging, anger, anti-semitism, Conservative agenda, deep divisions, fear, fretting, hair loss, humor, immigration, politics, thinking, Trump, worry

New Year, Not so New Resolutions

Posted on January 16, 2017 | Leave a comment

This is my new year’s resolution blog. You might think it’s too late for it but it’s only January 15. 2017 is just two weeks old. Still a baby!

Anyway, one of my resolutions is to stop rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off. (You might think this is a cliché but my husband actually got to see the phenomenon. In the old days of his Ancestors.com, a newly built home was blessed by cutting the head off a chicken. The vision of the chicken running around their yard featured in my husband’s nightmares for years.)

As for my resolutions:

I have resolved to stop multi-tasking and to slow down. We had dinner with friends last night and she asked me what I’ve doing. “Since we’re in Hawaii, are you sitting around and relaxing?” she added.

I shook my head. “You know me. That just doesn’t happen. But, I’m trying. As soon as I get caught up with everything, I’m going to put relaxing into my day. It’s one of my new year’s resolutions.” It’s that I so rarely get caught up. Then something happens, either good or bad, and I’m behind again. I didn’t think I’d have this problem in my 70’s. Still.

I find that every year I resolve pretty much the same thing. Writing that, it reminded me that two years ago I printed out my 2015 resolutions and taped them to my computer. I was supposed to look at them every day but then I forgot they were there until just now. Oh well, one of my resolutions this year is to give up trying to do everything right. That leads to perfectionism, which means you’re polishing things at midnight, be it silver or words. It also means there’s constant judgment being aimed at my endeavors. Mother has been dead twenty years but she still is holding up the signs and there’s never been a 10. So time to get over it!

Now, I’m looking at my list on the computer, and I like it. I haven’t accomplished any of the items, but they still seem like worthy goals. They aren’t global but more about me taking care of me. As a Grandiose Co-Dependent, I’m good at taking care of others, especially in the way I see fit. Taking care of me can go sideways.

No more procrastinating: here goes:

Be happy with myself at my age.
Stretch after my walk.
Eat Healthy.
Do one thing at a time. Finish it.
Think the thought that makes me feel good. Work on reducing anxiety.

Write a blog every two weeks. Write every day.

All of this should keep me busy. I told myself just the other day, “You better learn to be happy with your age, or you’re going to be constantly depressed. Stop looking at your arm and wanting it to be firmly muscled. Ain’t happening. Be happy if it is has a muscle at all.”

Which reminds me—this getting older is not so much fun sometimes. Keeping healthy is more than a full time job. Cancer knocks on your door and comes in uninvited. Strokes and heart attacks and dementia are only a Plavix away. Friends and relatives are getting really sick or dying. I finally get it when people say, “This is not a dress rehearsal.”

So, I guess my main resolution is that I’m going to do less and enjoy it more. (Okay, friends and relatives, stop snorting.)

Turning Seventy is Sublime

Posted on June 12, 2016 | 1 comment

I am in the middle of writing an essay about how wonderful it is to be 70. I started it in January, but got caught up in other things and in writing a memoir piece. So now I’m almost half way to being 71. With luck and time, I will finish the essay before that birthday.

Meanwhile, I’m going to share some thoughts. On my 70^th, I was determined to not look or feel my age. It was a lot of work! Now I’m purposefully slowing down—as a matter of fact, I took myself out of the race. I’m not so touchy about people holding a door open for me or asking to help me with my grocery bags. I don’t have to be in charge. I don’t have to be the responsible one. I don’t have to try proving that I’m as strong and capable as I once was. I can surrender to the aging. I can admit that I get tired. I can admit that I can’t lift my suitcase. I can admit that a swimsuit is not my best look, but I’ll wear one anyway.

One of the great benefits of aging is that I like being who I am. I say to myself when I’m doing something, “You know, that’s who you are. You’ve always been that way.” And I feel good rather than thinking I should change to conform to somebody else’s ideas. It’s true, for instance, that I rather write than play golf.

I still think of myself as young. For instance, if I’m on a bus or train, I’ll stand up to give my seat to an older person. Only… what’s happening is that sometimes there is no older person. The first time this occurred was last summer when I went to DC to look after my grandson who was interning there. To begin with, that was a joke. Garrett, in reality, looked after me. He set me up with a Metro pass and with Uber. He made sure I was fine when he went to work. He’d call to check on me. He made the dinner reservations and showed me where the washer/dryer was in the building. The day we took the Metro to Capitol Hill, he made sure I got on the train without any trouble. I was standing next to him when a man asked me if I’d like his seat. I smiled and looked around for an older person to take advantage of his offer. Then I realized I was the oldest by at least twenty years. That was a “Yikes” moment!

I’m not denying that aging comes with a lot of loss. We have lost so many dear friends and family to cancer, heart attacks and strokes. Or they are suffering with the effects of their disease. There is a sadness now that really has no time to go away. Then there is the loss of taut skin, height and strong muscles, eyesight and hearing—but let’s not go there right now.

I want to age gracefully, but I want to have fun too. Cindy Joseph’s make up tips for older woman have been widely distributed on Facebook. Here’s some of her advice around the eyes: “Women older than 50 tend to lose definition in their eyebrows. Just go with that. Don’t recreate the brows you had in your 20s.”

Really? I liked my eyebrows in my twenties, and if I don’t use eyebrow pencil now, I have no definition at all. I also tint whatever eyebrow hairs I have left. True, I don’t want to get to the stage where I’m drawing them on and entirely missing the eyebrow line. That is not attractive. But I figured out the solution to that: getting a stronger magnifying mirror for now and a trusted helper in my nineties.

Joseph also says: “Do not wear any eye shadow at all. …A little bit of mascara is OK.” Sorry, Cindy, but I plan to be wearing eye shadow in my coffin when I’m a 110. I love eye shadow. I’ve loved it since I was 13 and my mother wouldn’t let me wear it. So I’m not giving it up now or ever. I had a friend who got false eyelashes when she was 84. She loved them and they were cute on her! So there!

1 Comment

Posted in About Life in General, Aging with Grace, Babybooming, Searching for Wisdom

Tagged aging, aging with grace, babyboomers, false eyelashes, family, forever 21, grandchildren, grief, humor, illness, loss, make up, sadness, senior citizens, wisdom

Tag Archives: aging

Regenerating the Elders: Stemming the Tide

Senior Class: Shape Shifting

When did I start Creating Stories?

Superwoman Bites the Dust, Part 2

Believe it or not: I Found a Hair Volumizing Product that works!

All About Me! or Get Her Well and Shut Her Up!

Too Cool For School? Not Me

Need to Know Basis

New Year, Not so New Resolutions

Turning Seventy is Sublime

Recent Posts

Categories

Calendar

Follow My Blog via Email

Blog Stats

Book Suggestions

Follow Blog via Email