Women of A Certain Age - Aches and Pains

I recently came across this article The Secret Life of 40-year-olds: 14 things they don't tell you about the middle-aged and decided to write about each of the 14 things they list off.

Today's post is about number two on their list

"2. Aches and pains become A Thing.

Every time I move my neck or wrist after a period of inactivity, I hear the sound of someone gently palpating a bag of nachos. Noisier still is the entirely needless grunt I expel as I hoist myself from a chair after dinner. I now need reading specs which I clean by leaning over an open dishwasher door and waiting for them to cloud up. "

When I was younger I learned in 6th grade that I couldn't see far away. I was nearsighted. I never told my mom until the 8th grade when she could read a sign that was clear across a parking lot and I couldn't even see the sign, yet alone read what was on it.

I was in luck though because contacts had just come out and that is what I started on, glasses were just something I wore in the morning or before bed.

Flash forward 30 years and here I am I can't see close up any more either. So now I wear contacts and reading glasses to see the computer screen or to read while I'm wearing my contacts. Without my contacts I can read pretty good still though.

As for aches and pains, when I do get a whole nights sleep, my arms wake up after the rest of me. My hip hurts unless I keep up with my Tia Chi and my knees are just a mess. I've got a torn meniscus in one so sometimes it just wants to bend the wrong way. I have no idea how it even happened.

I've got degenerative discs in my neck, which I go every other month to the chiropractor to have adjusted. I swear spend most of my time with my shoulders up at my ears and my jaw clenched shut like a steal trap. I try to massage the trigger points in my neck to relieve the tension and it works for a while but I have to keep up with it. Yoga, Meditation and Tia Chi help out a lot also, but you have to make the time to do them after work or before. Sometimes you really just don't want to, or a lot of other stuff pops up and you just can't get to it.

I've started telling people younger than me to start taking care of themselves because after 40 your warranty runs out and all your parts start breaking down and you can't go and get them fixed. ( or you can but you will just have to replace them again later when they wear out again)

So you just do the best you can with what you can do and suffer through it. I'm also not trying to sound like poor me I'm in all this pain. Most of the time I'm fine. I tend to take long naps on the weekend and I let things go that I didn't used to before. I pace myself more and I know if I did a lot at work this week, I'm not going to be able to do a lot when I get home and I'm good with that now.

On the flip side, I never would have been able to let as much of the stuff go that I do now when I was younger. I'm learning to care a lot less about what other people think about me and what I do or don't do. The way I figure it, they're not paying my bills, what I do doesn't affect them in any way shape or form. They don't live in my house, they don't drive my car and they don't even visit for what I do to have anything to do for them. So I stopped worrying about it and just do what I can when I can because I'm finally deciding what is important to me and I'm finally taking care of me and I think that's a pretty good thing.

What are some things you found you can't do like you used to as you age? What are some things you found that you can do better now that you've aged?