“Hosta la vista baby!”
Its official, I’ve reached “the falling years”. You ladies over 50 or so will possibly know what I mean. Standing in front of a full length mirror in the nude (sounds so much more rude than naked don’t you think?} takes all the courage I can muster. The 63 year old body reflected back at me always comes as a bit of a shock to put it mildly. Is that really me? How can this be? Where did the slim, supple, smooth skinned lass of even 20 years ago vanish to? I’ve gained about 25 lbs in those 20 years and before that I can hardly believe that in my twenties at 125lbs I thought I was plump! I know, there are some really fit, taut, lithe women in their 60’s out there, not to mention those who are trying to stem the relentless tide of the advancing years with Botox injections, liposuction, face lifts and tummy tucks that only prolong the agony for perhaps another 10 years. Have you seen some of those gargoyles that pass for mature women on television? Mind you, if I lost 20 lbs and kept up at my fitness and weight training classes and had just a tiny bit of surgery to tighten a sagging jaw line and maybe a wee shot of collagen injected into my ever thinning lips, then maybe, just maybe I might try a foray into the dating scene again.
Anyway, once again I seem to have strayed from my topic; “the falling years”. Apart from the obvious of falling chins, breasts and buttocks, there is the problem of physically falling down. I seem to be doing this more often than I can remember since I was five years old. A while ago I tried running lightly up the stairs to one of our Sky Train Stations, why I don’t know, they come every five minutes, only to trip on the top step and sprawl heavily to my knees in front of the hoards of people waiting to board an arriving train on one side of the platform and a departing one on the other. As I struggled to my feet, gathering my scattered belongings to me, not one single soul came to my aid or even to ask if I was alright. They studiously ignored my plight as they fought their way onto the trains and I slunk off to the side to lick my wounds and wait for the next one. Pretty much only my pride was injured on that occasion though I was quite shaken up.
Another time I was on my way to a doctors appointment and after parking my car, I crossed the road and fell up the kerb on the other side. I don’t know why, but I did. I put out both hands to save myself, spraining (or staving as we say in
The most recent event occurred last week when I was pottering around my tiny garden, plucking a weed here, tweaking a recalcitrant plant there when I decided the bird bath needed my attention. I could have gone around behind it which would have been the sensible thing to do, but no, I stretched over my pots of hostas and the little wall of edging stones around the plot and endeavored to twist the bird bath to level it off a bit. Well of course I over balanced, tipped the bath over and fell among my hostas, knocking pots and gnomes flying in the process. I can only imagine how this must have appeared from behind had there been any witnesses!
Once I extricated myself from the plot, almost impaling myself on the pointed hat of a cheerfully smiling gnome in the process, I surveyed the damage both to my plants and my person. I righted the bird bath and noted the many broken and flattened leaves of my poor hostas. I had sustained a “staved” left wrist, a scraped right hand, two bruised knees, one which has since come up in a bump the size of a hens egg and also a big purple bruise which has appeared on my right inner thigh, I don’t remember how that got there although I suspect the gnome had something to do with it.
So here I am, sitting in the sun recuperating from the trauma of it all, Gin and Tonic at hand and I am hoping, dear readers, that I’m not suffering alone with this ghastly affliction and I look forward to hearing your “falling” stories soon too!
Cheers!
