As we get older, things go wrong with our bodies, they wear out and we are discouraged from talking about them. Younger people, in the bloom of youth and adulthood, readily hold out their casts for signing or relate the details of a hospital stay, but we older folks keep our ills to ourselves for fear of appearing frail and useless.
Even I, having spent more than a year here at Time Goes By encouraging acceptance of old people as we are and not as society wants us to be, succumbed this week. Last Saturday morning, getting out of bed produced searing pain in my lower back. It subsided to an almost tolerable thrum when I laid down or when I stood. I could walk – sort of – but sitting was excruciatingly painful. Only today am I back to normal.
Until writing that paragraph, however, I acknowledged it to no one. Friends called with the usual greeting, how are you? and I said, “fine.” When one asked about meeting for dinner, I said I had other plans. Undoubtedly, a neighbor who phoned would have picked up some things I needed at the grocery store saving me a painful, slow walk, but no-o-o.
I was too proud to ask, too indoctrinated by the culture into maintainng the pretense of youthfulness to admit an age-related ailment.
"Too proud to ..." you can fill in the blank, but the lesson I think for us in this is to not be.
To be confident enough in ourselves
To be strong enough to ....
No comments:
Post a Comment