Category Archives: aging

You Know You’re Getting Old When…

It takes two tries to get up from the couch.

When your idea of a night out is sitting on the patio.

You confuse having a clear conscience with a bad memory.

When happy hour is a nap.

The iron in your blood turns to lead in your pants.

When all you want for your birthday is to not be reminded of your age.

You no longer consider staying under the speed limit a challenge.

When you step off a curb and look down one more time to make sure the street is still there.

Your idea of weight lifting is standing up.

It takes longer to rest than it did to get tired.

Your memory is shorter and your complaining lasts longer.

Your house catches fire and the first thing you grab is your Metamucil.

You sit in a rocking chair and can’t get it going.

Dialing long distance wears you out.

The pharmacist has become your new best friend.

Your knees buckle but your belt won’t.

Your friends compliment you on your new alligator shoes and you’re barefoot.

It takes twice as long – to look half as good.

You get two invitations to go out on the same night and you pick the one that gets you home the earliest.

Everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt – doesn’t work.

You look for your glasses for half an hour and they were on your head the whole time.

You give up all your bad habits and still don’t feel good.

Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.

Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the guys with the Live Doppler radar.

You get into heated arguments about pension plans.

People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.

You have more patience, but it is actually that you just don’t care anymore.

You finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.

You have too much room in the house and not enough room in the medicine cabinet.

A fortune teller offers to read your face.

After painting the town red, you have to take a long rest before applying a second coat.

14 Million Seniors Already Benefitting From Obamacare

According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, over 14 million seniors have now personally benefited from Obamacare provisions.

Medicare reports that 14.3 million seniors in America have already received important preventive benefits under President Obama’s health care law. In the first few months of 2012, seniors were able to take advantage of a number of preventative health services, including an annual checkup, without paying any deductibles or co-pays. “Thanks to the health care law, millions of Americans are getting cancer screenings, mammograms, and other preventive services for free,” said acting CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner. “These preventive services are helping people in Medicare stay healthy and lower their health care costs.”

Staying healthy and lowering costs.

Sounds like the stuff of socialism.

Of course the real threat to the Republican party is that Americans may decide they like a little socialism with their morning coffee.

Who is This Stranger?

I don’t know who the stranger is
who lives inside my mirror.
Everytime I challenge him
he seems not to even hear.
He is so much older
then I imagine I’ll ever be.
Thinning hair and saggy jowls,
he just stares back at me.
He even seems to mimic
every move that I make,
every blink and twitch,
each nod and each head shake.
It just seemed to happen,
this old man living there,
for just a few years ago
’twas a young man with no care.
What happened to him,
and why he’s been replaced,
the obsession to find out
seems to be a total waste.
For no answers come to me,
I cannot figure why,
the young man in my mirror
is now this old, wrinkled guy.

VANISHED YOUTH

Hair of brown is gone away,
What is left is tinged with gray.
Eyesight so sharp, years ago,
Dulled now by age, you know.
What was said I always heard,
Now often I hear not a word.
I had stamina to run the race,
It’s harder now to just keep pace.
Skin once tight and muscles firm,
My countenance now makes me squirm.
Youthful dreams have come to naught,
I found but little of what I sought.
A journey launched when I was born,
Done too soon, leaves me forlorn.
Where did it go, my vanished youth?
I need to know, tell me the truth.