Growing Older and Finding the Humor in It

Growing Older and Finding the Humor in It

It sneaks up on you, without a sound, and then all of a sudden…BAM! There it is.

You are a senior citizen.

Your dark brown hair is now gray. Your teeth are taken out to brush.

It takes a minimum of two hours to loosen the arthritis from you joints,when you wake up.

You dreamed of moving south for your retirement, and realize your body is already heading there!

You look in the mirror and ask yourself, “When the hell did I turn into this sagging bunch of flesh?”

It was only yesterday that I was a beautiful young thing. I could stop traffic just by walking down the street.

Today the only way I could stop traffic is by jumping in front of the cars. Chances are, they would run me over.

I could catch the eye of a guy across a crowded room, simply by flashing him a dimpled smile.

Today, I saw a man staring at me in the super market so I smiled at him.

He starting walking towards me. Yes! I still have it, I thought to myself.

He appeared to be about my age and my heart fluttered for a minute as he approached me. A bit of harmless flirting can still be fun you know.

I knew I would have to reject his attention, since I am a married woman, but wanted to hear what he had to say first.

“I just had to come over and let you know that when I saw you my heart almost stopped.” He said.

Wow! I almost stopped his heart! I guess you never lose it old girl! I silently assured myself.

Then, he said, “You look exactly like my dear departed grandmother! You are the spitting image of her. I half expected you to have a platter of cookies in your hands.”

0k, so it wasn’t exactly the flirtatious comment I had expected. Let’s just move on, shall we?

There are two ways you can handle getting older. One is too sink into depression and lament over lost youth.

The second, and far more favorable to me, is to suck it up and find the humor in your changing body.

I was walking down the street not long ago and heard a flapping sound behind me.

I convinced myself that I had a stalker wearing flip flops who was getting ready to pounce on me at any moment.

I picked up my pace and so did the flapping sound behind me.

I decided to face my attacker, so I turned around quickly only to find there was no one behind me.

It was at that exact moment that it became sadly clear to me that the noise was the sound of my flabby ass hitting the back of my thighs!!

Yes, time is not always kind to those of us who cannot afford Botox or sucking the fat from our middle, and stretching

the skin of our face upwards until eyes no longer close when we sleep.

Is it easy to watch your once firm body turn into a rendition of the California mud slides?

No. I personally don’t care to see my navel relocate to my knee, nor do I like the fact that my “girls” are not perky anymore.

If my stomach wasn’t there to shelve them, they would have no lift at all!

My bodily funtions are "hit and miss" these days. I think that's enough said on that.

But what is one to do? I take it all in stride and accept these changes as a cosmic joke.

I try to find the humor in using my "back scratcher" to pull on my undies, because I can no longer bend down to do it myself.

I was asked not long ago if sex was still a part of life after sixty, and if so, was it still exciting.

I explained that sex is still very much a part of my marriage. The only thing that is a little different is how often it happens,

the way we do it…how long we do it…and if we have taken our pain medication before we do it.

She looked at me with a puzzled expression. I continued my explanation as best I could without compromising my modesty.

It’s still exciting, but also dangerous as well. It’s exciting if we manage to make it to its natural conclusion,

but dangerous if one of us forgot to take our heart medications.

Don’t laugh I told her. When you only do it once a year, it’s easy to forget your meds!

Strange how the mind tells you that you are just the same as you were at twenty-five, and the mirror replys, "What planet are you from?"

Honestly, aging isn’t so terrible. Well, it is…but if you can keep a sense of humor about it and enjoy the things you can still do, then it becomes just another chapter in the story that is uniquely you.

Myself? Well, I find laughter fuels longevity and I intend to stick around for a long time!