My birthday is this Friday. That’s not a pathetic plea for birthday cards or wishes, just a statement of fact, because it’s my last birthday before I turn 50. Yikes, it’s true. Next year I will officially be eligible for membership in the AARP. It’s strange how you cruise along (I did at least), blissfully unaware of the passing years. 25? No biggie. 30? I was hiking in the Himalayas! 40? Whatever, I felt good and just wasn’t thinking about… Well, secretly I was by then, but I was in deep, deep denial about it.
With each passing year since, I’ve become more aware of the little changes – the aches and pains that were never there before. The fingers that are a bit stiff in the morning. And don’t even get me started on menopause. The good news is I don’t get cold nearly as often as I used to. The bad news: spontaneous internal combustion! For the past few months my ache of the moment has been hip flexor pain. I had it checked out and the diagnosis was weak glutes. Translation: a flabby ass. Yes kids, I’m not 21 anymore, and my tuckus knows it even if I don’t.
*sigh*
So here I sit on my flabby ass looking over the edge of my forties at the yawning chasm of my fifties staring up at me. Chuck and I joked, after our Year of Becoming Semi-Bionic, that we were going to age like super people, with parts far superior to the average. If only. Still I guess I can’t complain too much. I can still run a marathon (albeit not nearly as fast as I once could), and can get on a bike and hammer out 30 miles without breaking a sweat (okay, that’s a total exaggeration but I can do 30 miles dripping sweat with my thighs exploding). I don’t look so good in the Speedo swimsuit anymore, but I haven’t turned into a total tub of lard either, flabby ass not withstanding.
So all in all, I can’t complain much. Well I can actually complain A LOT (and do – just ask Chuck) but I probably shouldn’t. I’m doing pretty well for, er, a semi decrepit this side of ancient ready for retirement mature woman of – okay, let’s just say it already! – 49.
Bring it on, Time – do your worst! There’s always plastic surgery!