Doctor Grandma

Today is my birthday. We won’t be celebrating much because we happen to be broke until payday. 🙂 

Many of my colleagues don’t even know how old I am. Something in me doesn’t want to tell them. (What does it matter, really??) I am just going to write some random thoughts. It is my birthday, after all…

First of all, I have so much to be thankful for. Praise be to God.

We have a beautiful, new baby granddaughter, born June 3rd! What could be better?

I have 3 other grandsons, each one of whom I love to the max. We also have 3 step-grandchildren but unfortunately, I never see them. Grandparents have no rights.

I have 4 wonderful kids, all functioning, able adults, with good hearts and spirits. Three are married. We all live in a total of 4 different states and stay in touch by phone, e-mail and facebook.

I have been married to the same man for 38 years…… It’s not that we have the perfect marriage. But we are happy, and he is my best friend in the world. At this age, we have pretty much settled our differences, have a decent respect for one another, are proud of how all our kids have “turned out” and enjoy being together. We are happy when our kids are with us, and happy when we are alone. It doesn’t really matter.

I have a new job, in my field, even in this economic down time. This will be my 3rd Fall teaching there. My relationships with students are developing. Some of them I am really close to, and will be so proud to see them graduate. (Then will THEY struggle to find a job?)

I love the place where I live. The house is good, not perfect, but it is newly built within the past 5 years, it has an extra bedroom, and it is nice. We still don’t have furniture to fill it, but oh well. I love the pond behind the house, listening to the frogs sing their chorus at night, the trees surrounding the neighborhood, and the neighborhood pool.

My schedule is now set so that I go in at 1:00 on Monday (then stay through 9pm), and I have nothing scheduled on Fridays. I have my summers OFF. Can’t complain!

I have never had any major health problems and for the most part, neither has my husband. (Knock on wood!)

So those are some of my blessings.

What would I like to change?? Typical of many women, my weight. I fully understand that models are diabolically thin. I don’t want to look like them, and I have lost the need to look sexy. 🙂  However, I do want to weight less than I do right now, which is more than I’ve weighed ever in my life. I am overweight. Something happens to a woman’s body after she turns 40, 45, 50…. it just gains weight naturally, on its own. It doesn’t ask you about it or give you any warning. You eat the same as you always did, and boom!! 20 lbs. more, 10 lbs. more. At this point I realize that I am engaged in a battle that is never-ending, to the very end of my days. That battle is with my aging body. I have to respect it, keep in tune with it, and go the extra mile (literally) to prevent its disintegration. Bad things will happen if I do not take this battle seriously.

It APPEARS, though I hesitate to believe it’s really true, that I have gone through menopause. At my age, it took TOO LONG. But it appears, that as of this summer, finally, things have stopped, ha ha. YAY, what a final freedom for a woman. I have felt hot flashes, not tremendously, not really all that much, but I definitely have them and know what they are. I describe them as your body catching fire on the inside, and working its way out. They don’t last too long and they are not insufferable. Not painful. You just know they are there.

My back is hurting all the time. When I get up, I have to stretch it out for awhile. I desperately need to walk 2-3 miles a day without fail. I tend to do that once or twice a week. Not enough. My knees now pop occasionally. It was probably 12 yrs. ago that I worked up to running 2 miles. I couldn’t do that now if I wanted to.

I have given up on contacts, after wearing them since I got a pair for my high school graduation. I just don’t care anymore. They were a constant irritation to my eyes. It was just vanity to wear them. However, I am looking forward to a new pair of glasses, which I will pick up at the end of this month. Trying to find a pair that look halfway decent on me. My eyesight, inherited from my dad, is so bad I am basically legally blind. An eye doctor told me, “They are something like 20/2600.” What a person with perfect vision could see 1/2 a mile away, I would need to get 20 ft. away from to see it!! HILARIOUS!! When I take my glasses off, the person in front of me is out of focus. I recognize people by the way they walk, their way of moving their body, their height. When I get into a swimming pool, I can no longer watch any child that is there with me, except that I recognize their general hair color and way that they are moving around in the pool…. SO, I doubt if Lasik will work for me, but I need to find out.

I know myself, know how I learn best, know how I function best. I am a natural introvert. I gain strength and peace of mind when I have time alone. TIME, not just 10 mins. while someone else is upstairs. Real time. Sometimes it takes me an entire day to revamp, and then I am ready once again to go outside my house.

I have very few friends. My women friends are those I met years ago and developed a relationship with. Technology is great, but I really believe it is responsible for people forming somewhat superficial relationships today. We get together on “facebook” and call that friendship. That is not real depth. And it is not sharing face to face, deeply felt feelings. That is another experience, and one that I wonder if “kids today” really know how to develop. I think it is a human need to have that level of bonding. But for me, personally, it is with my husband and my kids. Not many other people.

I can’t stand dogs most of the time. Can’t stand how they smell, how they need to be walked, how their tongues hang out and they pant, how they bark at people. Why is this America’s favorite pet?? I just don’t get it.

But I love cats. They are soft, they don’t bother you, they take care of themselves except for food, they are just pleasant. My husband doesn’t share this appreciation for cats. Since he now works from home and I must leave the home to work, we don’t have one.

I love swimming and water, and don’t care anymore how I look to others in a swimming suit (pretty much), so I just put it on and go in. It is only better for my body anyway, to get a little exercise.

Half of my family is now gone from this world. That is a weird truth. One of my siblings chooses to not have a relationship w/ me which is nothing I can control, the other one I appreciate and see occasionally.

and those are some of my thoughts on this, my birthday.

This entry was posted on August 19, 2010 at 9:08 am and is filed under aging, various personal musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.