When I was a child, I used to lie in bed at night and complain about leg pain to my mom.
“Those are growing pains,” she’d say.
Mayo Clinic states “Growing pains often strike in the late afternoon or early evening and are a result of overuse from activities such as running, climbing, and jumping that can be hard on a child's musculoskeletal system.”
I was never what I would call an active child. Sure, as a kid, I jumped fences, played baseball or basketball, skated up and down my driveway, or rode my bike around the block, but I wasn’t an athlete. As an adult, things haven’t changed much - I practically live on anti-inflammatories, When you’re over 50, you get “osteoarthritis arthritis,” also known as wear and tear on your joints. Walking up and down the stairs at home is about as crazy as it gets these days, especially because I’m clumsy and fear falling down.
Well, yesterday, I did fall down. And it suuuuuuuuucked. I do not recommend it.
We’ve been doing some minor renovations to our house and I was moving a really heavy area rug around, trying to get it perfectly centered so we could put our new bedframe on it. I’m a bit OCD, and probably shifted the damn thing ten times before my foot got caught on the edge and I went down like a ton of bricks.
What was the first thing I did after I landed on my knees (one which has been replaced, the other which will get replaced in December) and hands (one of which had carpel tunnel surgery, the other which has surgery scheduled this week)? I laughed. I laughed so hard that tears streamed out of my eyes. The sound I made hitting the floor was impressive, like a canon blast. The impact was a huge shock to my whole system. I remember thinking in the milliseconds of the fall, what is happening here? Then I thought “Well, shit” and bam, face plant. My poor husband looked like a deer in the headlights, afraid I had broken something, but I couldn’t stop laughing.
Needless to say, once I was able to get off the floor, I dried my eyes, shook my head wondering how graceful that must have looked, and ran (slowly walked) to the bathroom to take three Tylenol. I knew the pain from the impact was just the beginning of what would be a few days of soreness. This morning was rough getting out of bed, which is perfectly centered (!) on that damn rug.
Did you know that the term used to describe people between the ages 50 to 59 is quinquagenarian…say what…I can barely say it let alone spell it and I pride myself on my spelling and grammar because that’s what we were taught in grade school, along with writing in a fancy script. Now when I write happy birthday in a card to my 20-year-old nephew in cursive, he’s like uh hey, I can’t read this. We have failed our younger generations.
Things shouldn’t get harder as you get older. Things should be easier, including articulating words that describe your age group. When you’re young, they call you a baby or a kid, then a tween and teen. Then, bam forty years later you’re a quinquagenarian. Why do we have to use two Qs and a hundred other letters to describe the over-50 crowd?
For some, being over 50 also means your knees are bad, you can’t stay up late, you can’t eat or drink as you used to, and you gotta scroll for an hour to pick your birth year online like you’re playing Wheel of Fortune…zinnnnng.
I know people are living longer but if parts of my body keep breaking down like this I don’t think I wanna live til I’m a hundred. I already have knee parts and spine parts. By the time I’m 80, I’ll have gone full robot. Instead of feeding me jello and mashed potatoes, the nursing home is just gonna jam an IV in my arm with a slow drip of WD40. At that point, I say just unplug me, and power that shit down.
My husband and I have this conversation - I made him promise me if my body starts breaking down and I start talking crazy (and no, not now), just shove my wheelchair in front of a bus, or plug a cap in the back of my melon. Of course, with all my metal parts that thing will probably ricochet and take him out instead.
My dad was a vitamin junkie all his life, but he also lived on scotch and steak, which mostly likely caused his heart to fail. He also played racquetball and golf, he was on his feet most of his adult life, and his hips and knees went in his 60s and 70s, but through it all, he’d laugh and say he had a great life. He did some things to help slow time, but he also lived fully.
I share all this not to complain (ok, maybe a little) or to admit I have regrets (ok, maybe I could’ve been more active), but to say, that pain is sometimes a reminder that we’re alive. Pain is intrusive and annoying, and you really have to work at it to keep it at bay later in life. I could sit here and be miserable about it, complain that life is unfair, but that would be too easy. I made decisions in my life that got me here, so I found a way to live with them and laugh through it all.
Maybe that’s the message here. Laugher - it truly is the best medicine.
I’ll be laughing all the way to hand surgery this Tuesday, that’s for sure.
