In my closest circle of girlfriends, everyone is experiencing age-related physical problems. We are all in our 50s, although I am the youngest (love you, gurls), and we are, quite frankly, falling apart. Collectively, we have female problems, intestinal issues, funky looking skin areas, bad knees, bad feet, bad shoulder, bad back, sticking fingers, acne and muscle pain in areas we never even knew we had to name a few. Yeah, that’s right, there’s more. Including one of us becoming a grandmother. If that isn’t an age-related ailment, I don’t know what is.
We all thought we had more time before we started breaking down, as in another 15-20 years. We all hurt when we get up from sitting and it takes us all a little time to get going once we do hoist ourselves out of a chair. It is ridiculous.
Since I turned 40 over a decade ago, my philosophy has been this: if some part of my body falls off, I will just keep on walking. No stopping, no looking back to see what it was. If it’s leaving me, I didn’t need it anyway. Boy, if that’s not true of a lot of things in life!
I’m hoping we all get our second wind for this second half of our lives, but if not, there is only one thing to do: get younger friends. I kid, of course, which leads us right into our true, solitary defense against aging: laughter.
We are there for each other through MRIs, mammograms, blood work, ultrasounds, procedures, surgeries, biopsies, x-rays, colonoscopies, physical therapy, injections and in the one case, a baby shower. And we laugh.
We can’t all squeeze into the same pair of jeans like that other Sisterhood, but we can squeeze each other’s hands as we hold it and squeeze each other in a hug. And our diaphragms squeeze as we LOL right through the ailments of the day.
Growing old is not for sissies but me and my sisters, we got this. This hood is full of laughter and love, two things that will never fall apart no matter our age. And anyway, I’ll always be the youngest . . . Laughter, ladies!