I think I have always been 28...even when I was around 12.
28 is a nice age ............you are generally past the silliness of youth (humm is that really true?) and you have not yet reached the potential cynicism that early middle age possesses........it is, for the most part a happy carefree time.....
and so, in my mind, and when I am asked...I say I feel 28........
Today I feel like a man who has almost reached 50, no I am not depressed, nor am I swallow diving into a rather late mid life crisis..no......I have just been reminded that I have almost been on this planet now for five whole decades and am now experiencing the normal wear and tear of a man, "almost past his prime!" !
My doctor rang today with the results of my xray. He was thorough , professional and precise and suggested that I needed a few more tests including a referral to a cardiologist......of course it is all a "matter of routine" but as he explained his ideas, all I could really think of is the starting fact that I wasn't that invincible 28 year old anymore.
The skin on my hands now resemble what can be found on an average rhino's arse and the bald spot hidden away on my crown is just that little more noticable to those standing behind me in a queue. Reading small print involves much squinting and moaning nowadays.....and I am always in search of a bright light source in order to work out what is exactly written on the back of a cornfake packet.
Hey ho.......and I will stop right there before I start to venture down the "peeing in the middle of the night" story and/or waxing too lyrically about the start of that painful bunion on my right foot
Oh to be 28 again!
anyhow, like I said....... enough already.... will end with a couple of examples of modern day tapestry. In the Prestatyn Scala art gallery I noticed a small group of childrens' tapestries hung colourfully in the foyer.
two of them, I recognised as being interpertations of Trelawnyd landmarks
 |
The Ebenezer Chapel |
 |
The Memorial Hall |
You were attracted to childrens tapestries. A sure sign of being forever young.
ReplyDeleteI remember 28. It WAS a good time.
28 wasn't bad at all.
ReplyDeletemy arms are no longer long enough to hold things out for reading. I've had to admit reality and get reading glasses.
John you could well be on the perimeter of the 'knackered club' but you still write a brilliant blog. All the best with your cardiac tests - hope everything goes well for you!
ReplyDeleteOk, now I am even more concerned.
ReplyDeleteI always considered 24 or so to be the age in my brain, of course, girls mature earlier than guys. HAR!
I still don't have the middle of the night thing... unless I am sick - is it a man thing?
Growing older is not such a bad thing, but arriving at old - truly sucks!
Hello John:
ReplyDeleteWould that we could remember back to what it was like to be forty, let alone twenty-eight. But, rather as you say, it is the state of mind which matters and here, as we remarked recently, we remain forever Peter Pan.
As for the doctor, which as a nurse you will know, we really in matters medical have little choice but to 'go with the flow'.
And remember, whatever age you are, you can always be a friend of Dorothy!!
28 has always seemed like that "right" age for me too. I Have been recovering (for over a week) from a strained back due to too much outside yard work. I've found myself telling people that I just keep forgetting that I'm not 28 anymore. Hope your tests come out good John. Love your posts. Keep up your enthusiasm and you'll never grow old!
ReplyDelete28...1994 oh yes I remember it well, that was the year we got married.
ReplyDeleteI always feel that 39 is a good age. I told everyone that was my age last birthday, luckily for me most of them believed me! Remember you are only as old as the age you are feeling...wink, wink, nudge nudge. S x
Like the Hattatts said, "Go with the Flow", even if the flow is somewhat spasmodic at 2 o'clock in the morning when you go down for a pee (if you remember to wake up beforehand).
ReplyDeleteCheer up Chookie - you are just having a brush with the concept of mortality, that's all.
oh those tapesteries are fabulous !
ReplyDelete48 now...28 was good but I'm doing OK so long as I can still giggle & be a bit mad now & then. ( Ok my teens say " Mmmmmuuuummm!!!" )
devastated again John, no TY WYNNE on the tapestry......just Ebenezer Chapel
ReplyDeleteJason , TY WYNNE
"on an average rhino's arse"
ReplyDeleteYou are too funny.
By the way, you can't be old because I know a 75 year old who, when looking back to his youth, he thinks back to being 50. It's all relative.
jason
ReplyDeleteI will knock one up for you!
Dear John, I hope that your routine further tests with the doctor turn out to be average routine aging thingies and not something more serious. Now I'm only four, but add an eight onto the end and that's my lady. Old, schmold. hee hee. Live and enjoy the aging. As you know some lovely folks don't get to. Many kisses from your Isobelle! xoxoxoxoxo
ReplyDeleteJohn
ReplyDeleteI must be ancient then cos I have always been excited by needlework etc lol
Having spent my pre-midwife days as a nurse on a male urology ward I can totally understand the peeing issue!
I will be 49 later this year and it is starting to bother me :-(
Jane
Guess I am in BIG trouble then!You know I agree with you John.....28 was a great time to be alive!
ReplyDeleteBut so is now!
Well as they say the alternative to ageing isn't good :O).
ReplyDeleteFor sure ageing brings its challenges does it not! I am totally with you on squinting and hunting down my reading glasses, I find this most annoying. I have them every where and yet I can't ever seem to keep up with a pair LOL
I like that quote, Texan!
ReplyDeleteI'll be forever 25. I always thought reading glasses were cool -- you know the ones that are small,retangular and you can look over the top. Now I have five pair stashed in the house with one usually perched on my head. I still think they're cool. (And I'm on the other side of 5-0.)
ReplyDeleteOh, John, I know just what you mean. In my mind, I have been 29 for forever... Of course, in my mind I am also thin and vivacious. My back has been deteriorating for years, a fact that pisses me off and I valiently ignore the fact as much as possible. Then I do too much, or do something silly and I shuffle around like I'm 104, scarfing percaset like M&M's. I refuse to give in and believe I am anything other than 29. Maybe in another 10 or 15 years, I'll consider moving to 39, but I doubt it!
ReplyDeleteKatie in MN
Your still upright, that's a good thing !
ReplyDeleteI was saying to my husband just last night, wouldn't it be great if we were still in our thirties, yet had the knowledge accumulated over the past forty years.
He said not... we wouldn't have taken any chances.
True.
Hope all turns out well with the tests, and keep us posted.
~Jo
This is one of those days when I feel like 105.
ReplyDeleteI hope the results of more tests are mundane. xxx
Now when you said your hands are similar to a rhino's arse... did you mean they were brown and smelly with flies buzzing around them? Not the kind of hands that should be soothing patients' fevered brows in ICU.... By the way John, I have always been eighteen...as you may have already guessed.
ReplyDeleteI always hate when my birthday comes around as I do not like a number defining me, so I try to think positive. Sometimes it works.
ReplyDeleteYou are John your good sprit, your sense of fun and your joy for life (as expressed in your blogs). Don't get caught up in the numbers.
I like 30... that was a good age for me and I like the size I was then too. That's my goal: to feel 30 and fit in my 9/10 jeans. I just have to roll with the punches and put up with the rest. And smile. Be happy, John.
ReplyDeleteI'm holding your tender, gently-going, 28-year old heart in my hands John the dogs.
ReplyDeleteHi John--Believe it or not, we're almost the same age--I'll be 50 in a few weeks and I just don't think it can possibly be true, which makes me wonder when my brain is going to catch up to my aging body.
ReplyDeleteThis gave me a chuckle, John. And I know how you feel, too.
ReplyDeleteHope you have a wonderful Wednesday!
I have seen so many folks get to 50 and feel their years, then they get a second wind and are off again. It's frustrating when you first realize you cannot physically accomplish things you did before. But the brain finds clever ways to make up for that until, when age finally does set in, you just don't give a hoot any more. I figure you have at least 30 years before you get to that stage, enjoy them!
ReplyDeleteAs long as you, yourself, haven't picked up the needlework habit, then you should be fine.
ReplyDeleteI was in a bar with an 'elderly' friend when in walked a very pretty 16-ish year old girl. My friend immediately said 'Phwaar, if only I was 65 again!'.
ReplyDeleteI'm here to confirm that there is life post 50. I'm sure that like me, you probably lost many friends in the 80's and 90's. Here's to being a survivor and growing old!
ReplyDeleteIn my mind I am 15 years old - and still in love with Donny Osmond. I am horrified by the old bag in the mirror - but needlework has always excited me. xxxxx
ReplyDeleteWell I shall be 50 on 6th June and I have to confess that I'm really feeling the enormity of the fact that I'm well over halfway through my life! Where have the years gone?? It's all passed by so quickly ~ and how can I possibly be the mother of 20 year old twins when it doesn't seem like five minutes since I was giving birth to the little blighters! Ho hum, nothing to be done except go with the flow I guess ;-)
ReplyDeleteHope your "routine tests" turn out okay, sweetie (((hugs)))
Just to cheer you up, I got a 'second wind' at sixty - NOT from the rear end of myself! No, it was with my attitude to life. Keep the head working, that is the key, and you are doing that with your writing and interest in life.
ReplyDeletethanks all for your comments.... I am not down, just thoughtful...
ReplyDeletex
It came up on me pretty quick too---sorta fell apart at 40 got a second wind, and now as I approach the big 5-0 (still a few years off), the dreaded short arms/squinting thing happened. (It's embarrassing how big the font is on my computer at work!) And the bunions or whatever they are called on the sides of my feet! What?? That I didn't expect. Twenty-five is the age I've stuck at in my mind, except for that danged cynicism that has definitely crept in. Hope your tests go well!
ReplyDeleteTammy
You are definitely not alone. I'm still 28, but my body is not. Youth is truly wasted on the young. Lane
ReplyDeleteI grew rather sombre just before i turned 50 last August. I realised that i probably have more years behind me than before me. I was sad a moment and thought i didn't want to waste however many years being sad about something i am powerless to change.
ReplyDeletePhysically, i'm in pretty good shape. I have to work harder now to keep it that way, and yes, my hands now boast age spots. One just showed up one day when i was 46. Then a few more joined, you know, to keep company. But then i think of all the things these hands have done and the things i still want to be able to do with them!
I'm starting the trombone slide with small print. Annoying.
I hope the tests provide the information you need so you can make what adjustments are necessary. I want to read about John the dogs and nearly goats for quite some time yet.
megan
If it makes it any better... I'm older. Anyway, I've heard that 50 is the new 28. (I may have just made that up, but the older you get the more liberties you can take with the truth.)
ReplyDeleteMy mother always told me that I was BORN old. At least you had a few good years! :-)
ReplyDeleteI felt a rhino's ass at the zoo a month ago... that's pretty rough and dry. Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!!
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention uncontrollable incidents of passing wind.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE Texan's quote, too! "The alternative to aging isn't good." Brilliant.
I sincerely hope that whatever's up with your heart turns out to be benign, John. We've been dealing with abnormal results on PSA and mammogram screenings around here. The PSA thing was a false scare and we're in watchful waiting mode on the other. It's probably nothing, too, (these tests are notorious for false positives) but feathers are still ruffled. Still, I'd vastly prefer to be 53 now than any age previously. One of the benefits of a turbulent youth (whoever thought there would be benefits?!)
Dxxx