Getting old sucks.
“It’s not for the weak…”
“It’s better than the alternative…”
“It’s for the birds…”
What did birds ever do to us to wish aging upon them? That one, I just don’t understand.
My grandmother said, “When you get old, there’s nothing that Vaseline or a magnifying glass won’t help.”
Now, that one, I understand.
I really…really…wish I didn’t.
So here I am, sagging in the middle of virtually everything — where once was a smooth plain, well, things have shifted during travel, and if there was a hill or two, well, it’s melted among the other planes.
Nothing is where I thought I put it.
But the biggest issue thus far is that my stamina is gone.
Here’s how I know: gardening.
Yesterday was a delight, a real treat for the books: sunshine, warm light, slight breeze — slight breeze! that never happens on the prairie! — and the smell of freshly turned earth. Sublime.
Every year I expand my flower bed by about a foot. Apparently, I want a big flower bed, because every year I extend it, then ignore it because…hot…I don’t like heat in the least bit.
This year, no difference: bed needs to be bigger, bed needs to be weeded, bed needs close inspection with a lot of bending, shoveling, and cursing involved.
And I was fine. Physically, feeling good. Mentally, preparing to not over-work myself, because the first day of full-on yard work is exhausting.
Truly, I was smart about it.
“Don’t over-do,” I said to myself.
And even more odd, I listened to me. When does that happen?
So I dug holes, I pulled on weeds, I extracted grass roots yards long, because Bermuda grass does insist on keeping its foothold, and when the bell in my head sounded, telling me to quit, I did! 
I forgot to tell you this one detail: I don’t actually sit to work, I bend. Over. From the waist. In complete disregard of all safety videos/procedures/apps, I bend at the waist to work.
Thus, in order to abandon my post, stop with the clean-out and start with the clean-up, I had to do one simple thing: stand upright.
THAT, my friends, was when I realized how oh-so-very-much aging sucks.
When I stop whining, I’ll get back out there, to my front yard, and clean up my weedy, rooty, filthy mess. But I’m waiting for a non-windy day.