Old and older

Growing older is deceptively more complicated than it appears to younger people.

If I could just dye my hair, have my wrinkles smoothed out, wear younger looking clothes, it would be one thing.  Those are things I can do for a while.

Eventually, though, I discover there is a more insidious process going on.

Things break a little easier, bruise a little easier, hurt a little more, like a swimming pool with a slow leak, it isn't apparent right away, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening.

And healing is slower, less efficient, kind of like blowing up that giant raft for the river.  When I started it was so easy.  Now I am tireder, more out of breath.

And then there is that feeling of frustration I feel on those days I feel really good and look in the mirror to see someone much older looking back at me.

Nothing quite prepares me for any of this.  In the past I only needed to try a little harder, wait a little longer, begin again . . .

And I do begin again, just this time I don't get to go back as far as I once could.

It becomes obvious that even I will grow old and older and the only alternative to that is not a good one.