Hello to all,

“Growing old is not for sissies,” is a comment from an old man from my youth. This observation made me chuckle, seeing the seriousness in the wrinkled face. I thought he was joking, but he kept a straight face. Fast forward forty years, and it's no longer so amusing. I, too, know the struggle and warn young people that growing old is not for sissies.

Every morning, I wake up to a series of stretches that help me get out of bed. The noisiest of these is wrangling my feet back and forth, and then side to side. Each movement of the foot resonates loud cracking and popping sounds to which our entitled dog grumbles over the disturbance. If, for some reason, I skip this daily routine, a vaper lock forms in my ankle sometime in the early morning. One or both joints freeze with pain, and I limp for ten or more steps, trying to work out the buildup of gas, which locks the tarsals. There is no other reason than proving that growing old is not for sissies is a true statement.

The second exercise before exiting the bed in the morning is raising my knees to my chest, first the left, then the right, and finally both together. This stretches the lower back, allowing it to move in the morning. Dismissing this routine causes me to lean to one side or the other, and eventually makes my back hurt during the day. Again, proving growing old is not for sissies.

It is just a short trip down memory lane to when my eyes opened, I could pop right out of bed, run around all day, and climb back in at the end of the night without any pain. The only exception to this was running into something or someone causing the pain. There is a key difference between the young and the old. There was a distinct reason for the pain when I was in my youth. Today, I am walking smoothly through the house, and one of my ankles freezes up in pain for a minute. Didn’t step on anything, didn’t twist it, it just locks up in pain for no reason at all.

Oh, wait, the reason is “Growing old is not for sissies.”

Grace to all,
Danny Mac