Long and boring.
There's no way to say this, except: I feel like shit. I feel like my insides are dying, but it's not bad enough to go to the doctor about it. My joints hurt; my muscles hurt; my intestines hurt; my stomach hurts; everything except my head hurts. People around me say I'm just feeling the aging process, but if this is a portent of things to come, shoot me now. I don't want to live another 30 to 50 years like this!
At the grocery store, I followed an elderly couple as they shuffled through the aisles. They seemed happy. They walked slowly and carefully, but they walked. Their child with them was about my age. I think my dad is in better health than I am! It's all I can do to wash dishes or cook some eggs. I used to practice gourmet cooking! I used to curse the fact that my stove had only 4 burners and one oven... What happened? I feel sick all the time, tired, and unhappy.
I tried karate. It was fun, until I started falling. I can no longer stand on one leg and balance myself. I can't do pushups. I can't do situps without something embarrassing happening. (No, it doesn't involve a sound...) In just a few weeks, I gained 15#. What's that all about? I'm trying to lose weight! I can't do aerobics because my knee is shot. Doc said it needed surgery. Without insurance, that is nothing more than a pipe dream.
Hey kids, do you know what a 'pipe dream' is? It's actually a figure a speech from the 19th century - not, as many assume, the 1960s. (look it up)
World wide depression is coming. (I'm having my own little pity party right here, a few years early.) 2012 will probably be the equivalent of 1932. It will be bad, really bad for about a decade. Then, something unbelievably horrible will happen; we may even survive it; then, it will all get better. Sound familiar? Well, history repeats itself. It repeats itself approximately every 80 years. If anyone bothered to look at history, he, she, or it would see that.
Mankind is not getting better. We are not evolving. We are stagnating, degrading. In the most prosperous of countries, we have the sick, sicker, and sickest. Our life expectancy is not so much better than it was. What is gained? Some people live longer because we keep them alive. My own mom wanted to die, and thought she should have died, five years before she did. Why was she alive? The nurse hooked her to a machine against her wishes. She was under anesthesia at the time, and the nurse didn't see the note on her chart that said that she had a DNR.
What good is a DNR? Some people, like my husband's uncle, fight for every breath, every moment of life. He left when he could fight no more. Many, like my mom, simply want the pain to end. Mom blamed us for every day she continued to live without mobility, without full function or her left side, without eyesight, without understandable speech. She died in a nursing home, reaching for something and falling out of bed.
Did you know that the Puritans of 17th Century New England lived long lives? Some into their 90s? Do you know why? They lived a lot longer than their European cousins who didn't embrace “the faith”. It was the pure lives they lived. Yeah. You probably know them for witch burnings and stern reputations. Truth is, they were far more accepting of their neighbors than their contemporaries in Europe. Plus, they ate healthy diets, got plenty of exercise, and didn't smoke. I'm not a Puritan.
At least I don't smoke.