I was making an observation about the status of my skin when a good friend replied, “What do you expect? You’re getting older.”
Well, I didn’t expect my skin to look like old wrapping paper. Ugh! Where is that written?
I do appreciate being here on this earth, enjoying all that there is to be enjoyed, but I do not like being considered old. Old is a pejorative term, something akin to a fungal infection or the smell of a wet dog.
Let’s see, what synonyms are attached to old: useless, worn out, out of style, decrepit, creaky, slow, out-of-date, decaying. My gosh, even the thesaurus that comes with my computer says that old is “comes from the past.”
The media is chock full of negatives when it comes to old. Shows that are involved in clothing define unfashionable clothing as “something grandma would wear” Really? And, truly, does anyone design for the bodily changes that come along with osteopenia with a growing loss of height while weighing the same?
What is old? Dr. Spock outlined the stages and benchmarks of infants and children, with the caveat that all children grow and develop at their own pace. I have the old, very worn book, “Baby and Child Care,” that guided me through those benchmarks with my children. I wondered this morning if there was a book of similar structure for the stages and benchmarks of aging and growing older.
What I am looking for is a book that tells you what happens when the telomeres of your chromosomes fall off. Just so you don’t have to rush to a dictionary or Google to find out what telomeres are and how they affect aging, I’ve copied this for you:
Telomere length shortens with age. Progressive shortening of telomeres leads to Senescence and apoptosis transformation of somatic cells, affecting the health and lifespan of an individual. Senescence means “deterioration with age,” apoptosis means cell death and somatic refers to the body … Oh, yes, telomeres are the ends of your chromosomes.
I wanted something like “Baby and Child Care” for people past 60 – describing what happens over time, e.g. why isn’t my hair the same as it was when I was 25 or even 40? Hair is an important topic for people who have accumulated birthdays. For many, hair tends to disappear on some places while increasing in others. When does this begin? What factor of aging dictates this? Why gray? I mean why not … oh, maybe red?
What about our innards? Do they go through stages? Can predictions be made about their state of operations as we accumulate the years? When does our gut start to say “are you kidding” when we eat a sausage with onions and pepper sandwich? How long does it take to make anything dairy morph into the equivalent of a natural gas mine? When does our pantry have more Maalox, simethicone and Imodium than onions, garlic and cabbage?
At what point in life do our joints start to creek and leak synovial fluid? Why do even the skinny people have to have their joints exchanged for titanium replacements? Knowing this we could prepare by adding ace bandages, Advil, Arthritis Strength Tylenol and stronger stuff to our growing pharmacopeia replacing running shoes, skis, and ballet flats.
Oh, and don’t forget finger and toe nails. Why isn’t there a book that warns you about the deterioration of these parts of our bodies? When will it be time to stop having mani-pedis because you don’t want to gross out the manicurist? When will open toe shoes be verboten?
And then there is the insidious and oh-so silent crumbling of our skeleton. While the sun and other factors are beating up our skin, underneath, taking calcium and Vitamin D doesn’t seem to help as the stuff of which our skeleton is made migrates somewhere else – maybe to our gall bladder to make stones? What’s the timeline on this one?
This book based on the clarity of “Baby and Child Care” would also offer hints about options for one’s attire as parts of our body undergo changes. Forewarned is forearmed. By the way, I have a number of very cute shoes that I can no longer wear because of the artistic way arthritis has reorganized my toes. They are free to anyone who wears a 10 W. A book could have helped me … nah! I would have bought the shoes anyway.
And as I was sweeping up this morning, I got to thinking poetically, as if that dust was the accumulation of my telomers and years, or probably just crumbs from my last donut.
