Older and Better

You know you are getting old when you are sitting at your desk and something just pulls in your back. Or like last year, I was just walking along the road, when I twisted my ankle. I don’t know about these people who keep telling you that aging is in your mind, that age is only a number. Tell that to my body! There is the added weight gain around the middle, the slower recovery from sudden bursts of exercise, and of course “the change” which happened last year.   

I have no idea what my children are talking about in Math, and have to suffer the rolling eyes when I need help with an apparently trivial technology-related problem. I nearly fried my brain at the 4-hour workshop I attended on how to use my camera. Other giveaways must be talking about the "old days", and preferring snail mail and chats on the phone to "texting".

I don’t have a problem with getting older; I just have a problem with everyone telling me that it is happening in my head. It’s a process, this getting older. I remember a visit to the doctor a while back, when she told me that now that I was over 40 we needed to do an annual battery of tests like mammograms, cholesterol, thyroid, etc. I left there feeling like I was about to spontaneously combust now that I had passed a certain milestone. 

But here I am years later, still going strong! I have been growing my hair for the last few months. I have had short hair since forever but was feeling like I needed a change. "The only way to have something different is if you grow it," said my hairdresser (while you can still carry it off, he added, half under his breath). But there is life in the old dog yet! Last year was also the year that I went shark cage diving, learnt to ride an elephant and took horse-riding lessons. I have my open water diving certificate and made my television debut on Morning Live, no less.  I have just finished a course on magazine journalism and set up my blog (by myself when they were all in Durban watching Portugal and Brazil during the World Cup!). 

So now I find myself with the odd pain, embracing my curves and the natural highlights in my hair. I am doing things I never dreamt I would be doing. I plan on going back for the longer version of the photography course in the new year and watch out for the new and improved version of my blog. Things are definitely getting better.