Mine And Well Deserved

These are my hips and they can ache if they want to. These are my rotator cuffs and they can hurt when they want to. This is my lower back and if it needs to go out of alignment, I give it my permission. This is my headache and I am entitled to it although I might share it with a few aspirin.

My body has served we well for seventy-two years. Short of major surgery, which luckily exists if necessary, there is no neighborhood service shop that can oil my joints, retread my feet, tune up my muscle composition, rotate my blood vessels, alter my body mass, or refill my visual ability.

I have earned my pain over the years, variously through accident, injury, neglect, wear and tear, or just plain old age. And I am grateful to my body for the life force that it continues to deliver to me each and every day, especially since I wake up each morning, whether I want to or not. (And I still do!)

I do not complain  and do not talk about my aches and pains as part of the communication involved with friends or family or feel the need to do so, but for some reason as I was in bed at 12:34 noon today to take a well-deserved nap, I notice my hips were aching and I thanked them, welcomed the "zetz" (as they say in Yiddish) they were giving me, and rolled over to doze off.

I could talk about the same with my looks, the increased girth, the extra folds, the hair in unexpected places, the lack of energy, the increased difficulty in climbing stairs, pushing a table into place but hurting my wrist before the table even begins to move, the decrease in libido but none the less the continued desire and need for fantasy. 

I am grateful for and to them all! Signs of being alive: enjoying the changes in the seasons, the holidays that come and go, the excellent meals prepared by friends or enjoyed at the newest neighborhood place, a good deep afternoon nap, a one beer limit; I love them all!

Many in the Gay Community are still youth-oriented, at my stage of life I still enjoy looking at and thinking about what it would be to lay with a youth but if I am really honest with myself, who would want me, would I remember what to do if I had the opportunity, and would I be able to perform? Probably not, but who cares because most likely I will get to see tomorrow's sunrise and that is enough!