Only under stress do I begin to feel as if I might be too old for this or that. It doesn't have to be real stress either because imaginary stress will work just fine.
Take today. I woke up and could barely walk. It felt as if I had a crack in my pelvic bone. Pain means little or nothing on most days and I usually bank on the fact that it will disappear overnight. Today, however, I took the pain to heart worrying about all the things I wouldn't be able to do if I didn't soon feel better. In the words of Woody Allen, "I am not (being) a hypochondriac. I am (being) an alarmist." Parenthesis, my words.
My to-do list was a giant. I had to be able walk. I wondered about pain. Logical Caroline told me that I was on the right side of the ground; that I probably pulled something on Wednesday by crawling around on the floor, looking under the furniture for my lost car keys; and that, since I had not lost weight or appetite, this pain was not cancer.
Loony Caroline disagreed but decided to make an effort not to worry.
Forcing myself to disregard the pain as well as the stress of disregarding it - chalk the whole thing up to aging - caused me to behave as if I were eons older. I took pictures of the HP printer and the shop vac cover so that I could be sure of getting the right printer ink and vacuum bags. Then I left home (guess what?) without my cell-phone.
I got to the grocery store and decided that I was walking better. Good thing, as I needed to park much farther away from the door than usual. I chose my items, I stood in line. $54.29. Suddenly it struck me that my purse felt extra light. My big, heavy, silver wallet was in the car.
So I race-walked out and back to Publix again. I found the bankcard on the passenger seat, the wallet (which I never use without replacing it into the purse) was casually open and in the center bucket. "Yes," Logical Caroline reminded me. "Same story with the lost car keys! Ditto, forgotten cell phone."
So much for "She's getting older but her mind's still good." I'm not even going to tell you about Sunday, how I was late for confirmation make-up class, or about the book of church history that I read in 24 hours to try to assuage my guilt. Nor will I mention that I needed the class because I missed the very first one - wrong date marked on the calendar.
I'm going to wrap up this tale of woe because I just got a call from my cousin, Bebe. She forgot to send Fred a birthday card. His birthday was on September 17th. This is the 27th. Oh, my. It must have been because so much is going on up her way. So much stress! Her mind is gone.
She felt much better knowing that I remembered to buy his card (and one for Margaret) and forgot to send both of them!
In addition, after I clued her in about my own day, we had a giant, good natured laugh together. If we are aging, and we must be, we might as well find fun in it. "Get a good night's sleep," she advised. "Don't try to do so much," I suggested. She didn't tell me, specifically, that she woke up this morning with a pain somewhere, but I'll bet she did.
