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Reflections September 2012

“60 & Beyond” Quintessential Finishing School

Keeping Up Appearances

By Peggy Henderson

In our heroic battle to remain authentically realistic about this exit journey we seniors are negotiating, I’ve decided that I have two choices in the way I live out my advancing years. I can either gripe my way to heaven or grin and bear the challenges gracefully.

I can’t help it if I’m a people watcher. Perhaps this is why I fail to accurately complete my grocery list as I cruise up and down the aisles. I also frequently fail to obey the Bible scripture, “Judge not, less you be judged.” Honestly? I’ve been wishy-washy living with that scripture ever since the first grade. I preferred to ride bikes with boys rather than play with dolls with my girlfriends.

Although this childhood confession has little to do with people watching, it does illustrate my penchant for discovering what makes the sexes tick and ask myself why like-minded people like to form clubs and exclude others and make rules about how to dress and how and where to live. That being said, another confession is that it’s taken me 67 years to accept that it’s not the above social traits that really matter. If a person is content with his or her environment, so be it.

What is difficult to accept is, as we age our body, hopefully not our mind, loses its sense of gravity and balance. Mirrors are no longer our friend. We wonder how we arrived at a size 14 from a size 10. Year by year we rationalize that it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s a natural progression of growing old.

The unkind euphemism, “she let herself go,” is a loaded four-word accusation that no one wants to hear, much less accept.

The process of no longer caring about oneself is a work in progress. It creeps up unknowingly like a simple cough morphs into pneumonia. The culprit is basically laziness. Reaching a certain age doesn’t mean exclusion from positive work habits and the quintessential virtue of personal responsibility.

In our heroic battle to remain authentically realistic about this exit journey we seniors are negotiating, I’ve decided that I have two choices in the way I live out my advancing years. I can either gripe my way to heaven or grin and bear the challenges gracefully. I choose to grin. I refuse to join a pity party. I’ll schmooze with the doers and the shakers.

But there’s a few issues to attend to. Pronto.

One of my issues is because I spend hours in front of my computer, I find myself hunched over my desk, spine curved into the letter C; sadly my head and neck and shoulders resembles a dog in a prayer pose. I’m still pleased that I can handily touch my toes and walk a straight line. If I continue to work in this slumped over, comfortable position, I won’t be able to see the line much less my toes.

The good news is I ordered a posture perfector which looks like a rubber butterfly that attaches to my back with a plastic clasp in pink. My plan is to replace my pajamas in the morning with the band and wear it all day.

I know. Keeping up with body and soul is plain hard work. And, Lord knows, I gravitate toward anything that’s comfortable. And, who wants to spend untold sessions in a chiropractor’s office with no hope of a straighter spine?

In closing I found a joke in Ed Fisher and Jane Thomas Noland’s book, What’s So Funny About Getting Old? A bald-headed, well-dressed gentleman asks a well-dressed female out on a date.

“What are you wearing? Chanel No. 5? Moonlight Musk? Love Mist?

Female’s reply. “Vicks.”

There’s a lesson to be learned here. Never. Ever. Let yourself go.

I prefer Chanel No. 5. My lovely husband of 46 years gave me a tiny bottle as his first gift in our dating life. The man still has good taste, especially in women.

 

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