Decaying with grace

Too sick to write anything of deep significance today. Was travelling across half the country for the last two weeks and now feeling poorly. Boo Hoo. 

So on the topic of aging, it sucks. Had to sit in a car across half the country for 3 days and when I finally emerged into the glories of our tropical north, I was crippled with back pain. Thank God for Dolased. So what's with that? I remember catching a bus from London to Athens and being stuck in it for 24 hours a day for 3 days (bar a toilet break every 4 hours or so). It was a nightmare and my legs resembled tree trunks upon arriving but within an hour we were enjoying the fruits of Spiro's Taverna with no side effects to speak of (except the ALMIGHTY ouzo hangover the following morning and for several days after- I've NEVER touched it since).

But now, some thirty years on and I can't cope with the trip for 9 hours a day and a stop in an hotel room each night.  WTF? I knew I should have flown and left the delivering of the car to the youngest clan member. So what if he fell asleep at the wheel? That's the cost of war. Or learning about long distance driving for the first time as a P plater. We all did it. And most of us survived.

And that's another thing. Cars. It's a fact that you can't afford a nice car til you're old and wrinkly. There's the classic ad with the voluptuous young woman moistening up at the sight of a Lamborghini pulling up near her cafe table only to see a wizened denizen of the deep emerge from the driver's seat looking like something compressed, dragged up from 3,000 feet.

But it's true. You can only afford the damn things when you're old and have gotten rid of the progeny intent on spending their inheritance before you've even earned it. I finally had some financial breathing space last year and looked at getting a new car. When I say "new" I don't mean new. I mean new to me. I was not THAT financially viable; you know 15 to 20 grand's worth of a rich bloke's cast off. Whacko.

So I thought, at last I can get a car that doesn't need to seat the five miserable excuses for children I've been dragging up by the hair for the last several years. I only have to cater for 2 of them, and then only for a short time as they'll be off in their own cars in a matter of a year or two. So I wanted to be a bit you know, not the car of my dreams exactly but, well at least sporty. Because that goes with old age doesn't it? You can't play sport anymore (not without a paramedic standby or the portable defibrillator kit with the free blow up nurse and injection set) but you can LOOK like you do; that you're young and vibrant. But no. That's when age plays a cruel trick on you; you can afford it, but you can't utilise it.

So I'm shallow and so I looked at the Tiberon; a hairdressers' car! I was told. Does that matter? Do hair artists have a less discerning taste than butchers or clerks? I have no idea what that meant. But I do know that I had to bend to get in and that was ok, but oh my, the getting out was another matter. Clenching any residual stomach muscles just didn't help. You had to haul me outta there with a crane. I started making noises I've been mocking my 94 year old father for for years.

And like the car exhaust pipe I was exuding noises I'd rather the young dishy salesman didn't hear. ANYWAY it was like my brother said when one of my boys went to pick him up. My brother is no 90 pound weakling, a weightlifter, who viewed his nephew's Honda sports coupe thingy with disdain. When he got to the party he told me, "I thought he was trying to shove me into the glove box." 

So finally you can afford the car but you can't get into it or if you can, you need the help of the local fire brigade and the jaws of life to get out of it. Of course come to think of that, perhaps not a bad idea... It's all so beastly unfair. 

So I go up north to see my daughter who's having to go through chemotherapy for residual cancer. Nasty. All very horrible. Naturally I'm there for her. But no. I have the broken back, a fluey thing happening and my calf muscles aching with each step. It's really not the forum in which to complain and I'm really not made of martyr material and if my flesh was even vaguely smouldering in those moments just before combustion happens, you'd hear about it sharpish. I don't do the suffer in silence thing. She does. Must get it from her father. But anyway I managed. She managed.

It kind of helps to NOT be able to moan. You have to realise just how much of your time is taken up in negative thoughts about your health. Now when we visit friends, I find the hubby bending someone's ear about his nasal cavities or his back. I tell people I can't complain which is always a prelude to a long litany of ills that you're bravely enduring. You just know that sainthood is at the end of it and so worth all the inordinate suffering. And don't get Anna started on her bowels...

Do I mention the memory? (Insert here joke about forgetting what to say.)  Ha ha. Just no. It's actually true. You do spend horrific amounts of time with a blank guppy face wondering why you came to this room or opened that cupboard. It was there moments before; all missioned up with purpose and now- puff!- in a cloud of unknowing, it vanishes. You retrace your steps. You try to recall the thought processes that led you there. All in vain. It'll strike you in the middle of the meeting or on the bus. Meanwhile hours are lost in meaningless attempts at recollection and unfinished projects.

I was cooking the other day and asked the penultimate one to help with the chopping. He duly enquired what my instructions were (as they've all been trained to do) . I looked at the bread board all covered in oval, green things and stared at them. "Chop up the ... what the hell? The... those things... the 'not grapes'". Really. That's the best I could do to describe 'olives' because the noun simply evaporated as the synapses turned my head from chopping the onions to look at the other bread board in a matter of a nanosecond and it was gone. The pathway to the word olive just shut down and offered me alternatives; ball, marble, pea, cherry tomato, jelly bean, mouldy quail's egg, grape...

Unwanted weight? Hah! Don't get me started despite breaking my back doing aerobics 5 times a week. I have calves like a Soviet weightlifter and biceps to challenge Sam Stosur but the gut to challenge John Goodman. And now the face of a dyspeptic prune. I tell you I'm over it. What doesn't hurt, doesn't work as they say.

So I don't know. Perhap it'll all be ok in the long run as in a few more years I won't remember anyone's name or what I'm doing here and like my pal's mother, accuse an old lady of stealing all her favourite dresses (it was a mirror) and so long as I remember where the Sauv Blanc is and my stash of cherry ripes, life's good.