Use it or lose it.

     

Use It




Aging is not a disease any more than the ninth month of pregnancy is a disease.

Feeling wretched does not have a "diagnostic code" because it is a mere state of mind, a true mental outrage that running and playing are not on the agenda for today.
Well of course, running and playing ARE on the agenda for some old people, even some very pregnant young people, but I am just trying to make a point.
Most of us old people feel a little wretched from time to time.
It is what it is.

One wretched characteristic of aging is the loss of muscle strength that we ALL experience on this twilight zone landscape.
No, old age does not cause paralysis or neuropathy.  Those are caused by disease.
 (I should slide in a little warning here that weak muscles CAN also be caused by certain diseases & ominous side effects to certain medications.)
But in the healthy aging person, loss of muscle strength is expected.  Some people were never strong to begin with, but for those of us who were, it is wretched to push the couch and have it remain stationary.  Or to try to open the door to a public building and struggle so much a young person rushes to aid you!

But though our muscles are aged, they do respond positively to exercise until the day we die.

Use it or lose it is not a lie.  It is possible to increase our fading strength.
However, it is a daily chore, because we go backwards a lot faster than we did at age twenty.

I can see why some old people give up on the exercise.  It needs done daily and we are  so tired!!

And we have such interesting thoughts pop into our minds, probably because of all the junk mail the local Mortuaries send!!!
Addressed to me, 
I never open the envelopes, yet their very arrival creates thoughts!

When I took out a loan to build my home, the mortgage people misspelled my name on every page in spite of having spent two sessions face to face with me.  
They had my credit history, my Wage and Earnings, my Tax Returns, my bank account number..and my name! Nevertheless, they misspelled my name.
Yet when the flyers come from the Mortuary people, they have my name spelled exactly perfect! Like they got it off my Birth Certificate.

That's not a good sign.

One time when the ominous envelop arrived, I checked my absent neighbor's mailbox to see if they received a flyer.  Nope.
Very targeted advertising and I was the target!  Not even addressed to "Occupant".

That's not a good sign.
                         **********************


I never gave any thought to burial until I was in my 60's and I was laying down on my sweaty back on the grass trying to recover from a little bit of yard work and avoid a stroke.  As I lay there , the thought came to me, "When I die, I want buried FLAT.  Please oh please don't stand me up in my grave!  I am so tired!"
Even Egyptian Pharaohs were stretched out flat for burial.  Who in their right mind would make a dead body stand up even if it would save space? (some young person might)
However, all those thoughts were before Hurricane Katrina.
Being a hypochondriac, I was mesmerized by all those caskets that floated up, having lost their moorings during the storm of all storms. Mesmerized and horrified.  Were you?
That is the exact time a new plan formulated in my brain: I want my body cremated after I die!

There is a Rose Garden in the town I live in where you can have your ashes scattered among the roses, mixed in with the ashes of other's . ******* Doesn't that sound cooler than heck?

And I have lived long enough to also see the beauty of scattering  ashes to the winds.  However, I do remember from the Hunger Games series, what Katniss said in "Catching Fire" (or was that "Mockingjay"?) as she walked in the dusty ashes of a town full of people bombed to ash:  "It's not what I'm breathing that bothers me so much as who I am breathing."
     So, I plan to opt for the Rose Garden.

Or, I could be like my mom who died young before getting to enter the twilight zone.
Death overcame her while the sun was still shining brightly.  She was dismissive about what to do with her left-over body.  "I don't care what you do!  I won't be there!"

Yes, it is possible to leave somebody else holding the bag.
                              Good-bye, Mom.
There probably are great lessons to be learned from getting caught holding the bag.  I can just imagine my mom smiling as she departed the scene, perhaps saying, "See ya!  Wouldn't want to be ya!"


Thank you for your visit to this dreary post,
Riverwatch

PS  This post started off upbeat. I don't know what happened!  Probably the mail from the Mortuary addressed to ME!  Crap.