On Aging

I spent this last weekend working on projects around our cabin in the Sierra...

Since we only go up for a few days at a time in the winter, we don't need that much wood...but we still haven't burned up all the wood we created by cutting down a few dead trees and rebuilding parts of the deck. And over the years it had grown into a mass of a mess. So I pulled out everything from the woodshed and put it back into place. What fun.

And once I did that, I also took a few hours to dig some larger beds in front of the cabin where we can plant some groundcover---all part of making the place look a little more like part of the living forest, and a little less like a desert compound.

So imagine my delight when i started doing a few stretches this morning and felt a pop in the back of my leg as I pulled a hamstring muscle. I haven't done in nearly fifty years---and that was back when I was playing very competitive soccer.

So now i get to loll around and do very little. Just what the doctor didn't order for someone my age. As a dear old friend of mine liked to say: "Getting old sucks. But it beats the alternative." Sigh.

I'm starting to see similar things - and I really appreciate you telling me what to look forward to!

Just proves the old adage: no good deed goes unpunished.

Hope you're feeling better soon.

I recall from childhood my grandfather saying his back hurt because he was kicked by a mule when he was 15. He said things you thought you got over when young come back to haunt you when you get old.

Then in my thirties I was having lunch with a gentleman in his fifties and I was commenting how I had slowed down from when I was 19 or 20. He told me that every decade comes with new bodily decline.

I recently had the VA grant me a 10% disability rating for a parachute mishap that happened when I was 18. It's usually not too bad if I wear a brace, but now all of me aches from a couple hours of yard work whereas in my 30s I could hike a local trail 10 miles and then come home and mow the lawn for 3 hours.

At least I'm still immature!

It hadn't occurred to me until I read your post, but this is the same leg and location where I pulled a hamstring playing soccer almost 50 years ago...

What next? Will me nose get broken again, or my ankle sprained? Because I also had those injuries in my youth 😝