They say growing old isn't for sissies. It
isn't for ninjas either because even their knees give in after a while. I think
it's all of the roof jumping.
I remember the days when I could climb a
fence without impaling myself or jump a stream without pulling a fat. I can
also remember laughing at my mother because she a) fell asleep while reading and
b) never woke up when the book fell onto her face.
But that was then. This is now.
As my mother's one moniker is the
Grey-headed Bush Shrike, the silver signs of aging were accepted with
forbearance. The same couldn't be said about finding my first grey eyebrow,
however. But, in comparison to the discovery of several chin hairs, it was a
calm, zen-like experience. It appeared that my transition into witch or warthog
was almost complete. All I was missing was a wart and a broomstick - although
without opposable thumbs, warthogs would find steering quite difficult.
In my thirties Short-arm Syndrome started and
my eyesight has deteriorated to the point where the font size on my phone can
be read from the moon. I now also can't see if I'm using shampoo or conditioner
in the shower and am on the verge of writing 'S' and 'C' in thick black koki on
the bottles. Oh, the shame.
Karma then started to turn the wheel. It
started with infrequent wakings up with the book open and progressed to being
startled awake as the book fell to the floor with a thud. And just this week it
progressed to the point that, when the alarm went off at 5.30 I woke up to find
the light on, my book on the floor and the dog lying on my glasses. Foolishly I
imagined things couldn't get much worse. My body had other ideas.
Falling asleep on the sofa has moved from
the exception to the norm. I'd fool myself by lying down 'just to watch the end
of the programme' and wake up two-and-a-half hours later with such a severe
case of pins and needles in my wrist that I thought I'd had a stroke. Or
whatever other disease is symptomatic of wristicular (medical term) pins and
needles. Bad? Yes. The worst? No.
One night I was sitting upright, enjoying a
cup of coffee while watching TV when I was woken by warm liquid trickling down
my leg. It was quite a shock. Firstly, I hadn't even realised I had fallen
asleep and, secondly, I naturally feared the worst. Nervously I looked down to
discover, with quite some relief, that in my catatonic state, the coffee cup
had tipped over onto my thigh. Not my
proudest moment but much better than having to go out and buy adult diapers.
I felt positive that I couldn't surpass
this senior moment until today when I finally found my mobile phone in my lunch
box in the fridge.
