Friday, July 13, 2012

Aging

Yesterday I finally took my employer's Vitality Health Assessment. There’s bad news and there’s good news. The bad news is that I am “older” than I think I am. The good news is that based on my Vitality age I now qualify for my full Social Security benefits. I can retire as soon as I finish these thoughts. The truth is that I often feel as old as the assessment says I am. I am starting to have the experience of many older people who think they are a young person trapped in an old person’s body. When most older people have this experience they think, “What the hell happened”? My real age is 61. My Vitality Health Assessment age is 69. My mental age is 25. Inside my somewhat rundown body is a young man saying, “More wine for me and my friends! Bring more food! Where are the women?” Alas, the mind and the spirit are willing but the flesh is weak. I can no longer stay up all night, howl at the moon, and watch the sun rise as I drive home. Now I crave sleep. I have to be careful of what I eat. I not only worry about my weight, I must monitor my blood sugar, and not upset my fragile intestinal track. I can doze off with Led Zeppelin music cranking out on my sound system. When my granddaughter is around she exhausts me. I still have a rock and roll mentality but I can’t jump around as much. Sometimes instead of going to an actual concert I just wait for the DVD to come out so I can watch it from the comfort of my Lazy Boy chair and I can pause it whenever I make a trip to the bathroom. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones first concert. Their real age matches my Vitality age. However, Mick Jagger and I are on the same page. We know it’s only Rock and roll but we like it. We also agree on another Rolling Stone song lyric that goes, “What a drag it is getting old”!






No comments: