I’m too young to be this old. Aging happens. It’s just not supposed to happen to me.
I can mow the front or back lawn, just not both in the same day. I set one small goal a day for myself and call it a win if I get it done. “Clean the kitchen” becomes “clean the fridge’s vegetable drawer.” Great! Now I can sit in the comfy chair and read for the rest of the day!
I cleaned the kitchen last, what was it? A week ago Sunday? Maybe. Not sure. The point is that I know I did it. I just can’t remember when.
I assembled a new “hall tree” because the hook rack I mounted on the wall fell out. Again. Every time I tried to put it up, those plastic screw holders that butterfly outward inside the wall to hold the screw just fell right through. There’s a good collection of them inside the wall now. Fun for future remodelers! “HEY, lookee here! Some eejit kept trying to hang stuff in the drywall without ever bothering to find a stud to drill into! HA!”
Anyway, I bought the hall tree because it was the narrowest and cheapest I could find. Not cheap enough, given how flimsy it is. I assembled it despite instructions that excluded mention of two pieces. I realized I put one shelf in backwards when I saw holes for screws that had no screws in them, after the whole thing was assembled.
Instead of taking it apart, I just ripped the shelf right out (a benefit of flimsiness) which, surprisingly, didn’t break the tiny wooden dowels that helped hold the shelf in place. It just took a chunk off what would become the outward facing part of the shelf. I sighed and then took the time to separate the top from the bottom of the “tree” and turn the shelf around. I covered the damage with tape and called it a day.
The hall tree has stabilizer brackets screwed in on top and into the drywall (through the duct tape I put there to hold the plastic thingees that kept falling through the wall from three different rows of holes – what was that definition of insanity, again?) Mysteriously, this time, the plastic thingee didn’t fall down inside the wall. And the assembled tree covers the duct tape, unless you’re tall enough to see the top of the unit. No one who lives here is.
The other stability bracket is screwed directly into the drywall, no plastic thingee. Sure, that’ll last. Meh. Everything breaks, eventually. Including me. Which pisses me off. And frustrates me. Getting older helps you understand why many older people are cranky and short-tempered.
My latest adventure in aging is my back. But I didn’t DO anything! Why does it randomly start hurting so much I can barely walk? Well, maybe I did do something: under the tutelage of a no-doubt wildly unqualified YouTube “fitness instructor,” I held a ten-pound dumbbell, “goblet” style (you know, vertically, with the bar parallel to my body) and twisted from side to side.
I only remembered hurting my back doing this by doing it again and hurting my back. Then I made it worse by mowing both lawns in one day with a mower handle set too low, because I didn’t know how to adjust it. It took a kid more than 40 years younger than me, whom I will hire to do “spring cleanup” next year, to show me how to do it. So now I can mow the lawns again as soon as the hot water bottle I’ve been using on my back enables me to walk again. That and some cherry juice, which I already had in the fridge because I read it was good for sore joints. “So I got that going for me. Which is nice.”
More trees are turning. I’m turning with them. But thanks to the calming effect of blissful temperatures in the 60’s I’m practicing acceptance. I can’t clean the entire house in a day, but I can do one room. I can mow one lawn in a day, but maybe not two. I can assemble a hall tree with 95% accuracy.
My goal for today is to pick up a piece of plywood to put under my mattress (take that, sore back!), put the clean mattress pad and fresh sheets back on Angelic Daughter’s bed, and finalize a planned three-day fall excursion, including reservations for trail rides and locating you-pick orchards. Yeah, that’s three goals, but only two of them threaten to hurt my back again! I’ll fill the hot water bottle just in case.
Hoping the plywood fits in my car, I remain,
your occasionally ambulatory, often frustrated, sometimes energetic, often exhausted, aging ungracefully,
Ridiculouswoman