Shaky Foot Wisdom
V
August 11, 2020
Getting Old
Bette Davis got it right, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.” And Michael Clarke Duncan too as John Coffey said in The Green Mile, “…Mostly I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world every day.”
And the world we have inhabited the past five months is enough to make anyone tired.
Meanwhile, back to this getting old. Time used to move by slowly at a leisurely pace. I don’t quite remember when, but eventually I was engaged in a game of hurry-up leapfrog, jumping over one milestone and then another. And now in the midst of celebrating the unlikely longevity of living to just two years shy of seventy, I had already imagined that next leap into a seventieth decade.
Now there is no rush to get there, as I know the next couple of decades loom on the horizon as something quite different yet. I am figuring out that receiving the diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease is an undefinable search to define what this means to me?
I check in with myself now a bit more frequently, just a quick hey, hello and, how am I feeling right now? PD and sleep issues are kind of like peas and carrots or bacon and eggs. So, knowing how I am doing other than, “…Mostly I’m tired…”, remains a challenge.
Sure, the meds help lessen the resting leg and foot tremors and yet somedays like today I almost feel numb too-probably a side effect of dopamine loss.
For now, I choose to find both solace and humor in recalling, “Getting old ain’t for sissies.”
