I hurt!
Of the three dimension of the aging process, nobody talks about the pain in the aging process. The intentions are good. You don’t want people to think you are a complainer. So you just don’t talk about it. You learn to walk and move in ways that disguise the fact that pain is your constant companion. Your denial is contagious and so we all suffer in silence confirming that the pain we feel is a personal affliction and not a general condition of being old.
Deny? Complain? Which?
I don’t know if denial of pain is a bad thing. I don’t like to be a complainer either. I don’t want people to think of me only as a whiner. But pretending that old age is a picnic and that everything I do is just the same as when I was younger is a lie. My mother always told me that lying was bad. But now I find out that she was a liar too. She didn’t talk about her pain. She just endured. And we believed what we wanted which was that old age was just like youth except that you looked bad.
Where is your pain?
I don’t know where your pain is located. I notice my knees most but lately I suspect that over time, my body has just adjusted to a higher and higher level of pain everywhere. The pain in my knees overwhelms the other pain but the truth is that I hurt all over. This is probably a good thing. I can cling to the delusion that if I got my knee pain fixed then I would be just like a 30 year old again. I suspect that we all have our pain focal points- our star pain provider if you will. Mine is definitely the knees.
Each morning the pain is reassuring. I am still alive.
Still when I wake up each morning, I start by running an inventory of the muscles and joints in my body, flexing and stretching to test how all the parts are working. At the same time I am feeling for pain levels, measuring and monitoring. Sick though it may seem, that testing and the resulting pain is reassuring. I have lived through another night and my body is still functioning. The pain I feel is proof that my time has not come.
So lets talk about pain – just among us.
So I have come to accept my pain as the price I pay for living into old age. But I am tired of pretending that life is just the same at 70 as it was at 40. I don’t really want to complain and ask for sympathy but neither do I want to continue pretending that it isn’t there – ALL THE TIME! People need to understand and anticipate the changes that aging brings. An old person is not just a young person with wrinkled skin. The body fails on you – no matter what you do to fight it. I don’t want to complain about the pain. I accept and deal with it. But neither do I want to pretend that it isn’t there and a natural product of aging.
My knees hurt – So there!
I’m going on record right now to state that my knees hurt. And they hurt all the time. And that I don’t expect them to ever stop hurting until I am dead. I feel much better now and I can go back to pretending I am just a white haired 40 year old with wrinkles.
Now it is your turn!
I offer you- my readers the same opportunity to tell about your pain. The one you pretend isn’t there and don’t want to bother people with. You are among friend and friends don’t have to lie to each other. Let’s all chant together.
I am old.
I have pain.
Feel better? I know I do.
Originally posted 2011-02-04 06:55:48. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
[...] When you consider those first two areas, aging is something that most of us can handle with relative ease. Things are different from your younger years but similar enough that you can finesse your way along. When it comes to the third one, however, the one nobody talks about, it is a brave new world. The world of pain. [...]
There ain’t no pretending. Pain is all me and my 60 year old peers talk about: what’s bothering us now, and how much it hurts. My meditation group teaches that Pain and Suffering are two different things. Pain being the actual physical sensation one feels; and Suffering, one’s relationship to it (aversion, dis-like, desire for something else not readily obtainable etc.) Like you, I find acceptance of pain, and then modification of behavior (not attempting the physical stuff you did 30 years ago), to go a long way in dealing with pain we’re bound to face as we age. Better than checking out early
Hansi’s last Blog Post ..Dear Hansi
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Ralph@retirement lifestyle Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 8:22 am
Hansi,
Your approach is more Zen. Accept and work with pain. Mine is more like Rocky. I don’t want to let the sucker hold me down.
Ralph@retirement lifestyle’s last Blog Post ..Pain – the unmentionable dimension of aging
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Hell Ralph, old farts don’t have a lock mon constant pain ya know.
In my younger days, in another life, I played football for a living. When I was 22 I took a hit in the knee that did a LOT of damage. The doc gave me a choice…go under the knife and be able to play football again the next season, or avoid the surgery for the moment and end my playing football.
Never having been very lucky in knife fights, I hung up the cleats.
The doc had also told me I was putting off the inevitable…that eventually I would need a knee replacement. “Eventually” is almost here I think, and I hope my luck in knife fights has gotten better…but the knee pain has been there for 34 years.
[Reply]
Ralph Reply:
February 5th, 2011 at 8:25 am
People with knee replacements tell me how much better they feel. Me I’m reluctant to become the bionic man, if for no other reason than you have to go to the hospital.
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Bob@JuicyMaters Reply:
February 5th, 2011 at 9:57 am
It’s not the actual fake knee…or the bionic man thing…that bothers me. It’s the knife fight involved in putting the damn thing in.
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Pain is all in the mind, and the knees and back.
Growing old sure makes you appreciate your youth, when everthing worked OK and the worst you felt was when you had a hangover.
Now everything hurts in places you didn’t know you had.
Bill
Ashton-under-Lyne, UK
Bill Murney’s last Blog Post ..The Battle Of Trafalgar – Modern Version
[Reply]
Ralph Reply:
February 5th, 2011 at 8:23 am
Bill,
Youth is wasted on the young. Still, I think maybe some of what we are supposed to learn is to deal with distractions like pain.
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I’m not there yet- but my husband is. It is really difficult for him to accept the pain. I don’t offer advice. He knows how to care for himself. I do offer an ear and a heating pad.
We are always on the look out for ways to combat pain. If you come up with non drug related ways…let us know!
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Ralph Reply:
February 5th, 2011 at 8:21 am
You probably know what I know now but I’m inspired to explore the possibilities.
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Bob@JuicyMaters Reply:
February 5th, 2011 at 10:57 am
Think homeopathy…the real thing, not fake fad crap.
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