This year
Category Getting old
This has been a tough year for me. I have always been subjected to mood swings over the years and I have been trending downward for the last several months. For the most part this is, I am sure, due to the approach in a year, my 60th birthday. When I look around and see all of the misery in Haiti and the physical state of people that I see on the streets, I have very little to legitimately complain about, but I can feel the years starting to catch up with me. I now need to actually sleep every night – all nighters working late on projects are a thing of the past. I have joints that ache at times and I’ve got a slowly developing cataract that is obscuring my vision, and I can’t say I really spring out of bed any more – rather I slowly creak to a standing position. Nothing serious, but certainly a constant reminder that I am no longer young (and yes, I know that age is often about attitude). Do I sound whiney? I don’t mean to, I just don’t like getting old – but of course there is very little that I can really do about it.
This has been a tough year for me. I have always been subjected to mood swings over the years and I have been trending downward for the last several months. For the most part this is, I am sure, due to the approach in a year, my 60th birthday. When I look around and see all of the misery in Haiti and the physical state of people that I see on the streets, I have very little to legitimately complain about, but I can feel the years starting to catch up with me. I now need to actually sleep every night – all nighters working late on projects are a thing of the past. I have joints that ache at times and I’ve got a slowly developing cataract that is obscuring my vision, and I can’t say I really spring out of bed any more – rather I slowly creak to a standing position. Nothing serious, but certainly a constant reminder that I am no longer young (and yes, I know that age is often about attitude). Do I sound whiney? I don’t mean to, I just don’t like getting old – but of course there is very little that I can really do about it.
Professionally, things have not been great – I don’t think I am making the impact that I wanted to at this point in time. (But I am sure I will touch on this later)
Of course there are always the ups and downs of life to content with. Appliances break, projects don't work the way I planned. But that is life. After 30+ years of being married it can still be a lot of work to maintain (and really easy to screw-up) a relationship. (not that I have any complaints – I just sometimes wish I was better at knowing the right things to say and do – you know, get to coast for a while without any worries). But - I of course never learn and seem to spend as much time digging my self out of holes that I recently seemed to have filled in. I suppose if life were easy it wouldn't be as interesting. Of course the one thing I can always count on are the border collies - they understand the word "focus" - they are single minded and consider me an idiot most of the time for doing things other than what they are so clearly telling me to do.
I have however decided that there are few health things that I can accomplish. One of them is loosing some of this weight I have put on over the years. We all do this as we age and am definitely larger (a good bit larger) than I was when I was first married. Maggie has been after me for years to do something about it (She maintains the same weight as when I met her years ago, but she works very hard at it), but I always had some excuse or reason why I couldn’t do it. While it is never a good idea to make resolutions during the holiday season, I decided when I drew up my secret goals for the year that I was going to make a concerted effort to loose some of these extra pounds. So, by talking about it here, I guess I am making a real commitment to do something (of course as a sporadic blogger, I can just stop making entries if I fail). I have a bit of a crutch since a friend and neighbor had embarked on a serious campaign to do the same thing, so now I can turn it into a one-sided competition (he won’t know) which will maybe spur me on. So, I start the year at an even 200 pounds (first time I have ever admitted to anyone that I reached that point) so now I will see what I can do over the year. This probably means I’m going to have to cut back on the wine too – gee – that’s going to be tough.
Of course there are always the ups and downs of life to content with. Appliances break, projects don't work the way I planned. But that is life. After 30+ years of being married it can still be a lot of work to maintain (and really easy to screw-up) a relationship. (not that I have any complaints – I just sometimes wish I was better at knowing the right things to say and do – you know, get to coast for a while without any worries). But - I of course never learn and seem to spend as much time digging my self out of holes that I recently seemed to have filled in. I suppose if life were easy it wouldn't be as interesting. Of course the one thing I can always count on are the border collies - they understand the word "focus" - they are single minded and consider me an idiot most of the time for doing things other than what they are so clearly telling me to do.
I have however decided that there are few health things that I can accomplish. One of them is loosing some of this weight I have put on over the years. We all do this as we age and am definitely larger (a good bit larger) than I was when I was first married. Maggie has been after me for years to do something about it (She maintains the same weight as when I met her years ago, but she works very hard at it), but I always had some excuse or reason why I couldn’t do it. While it is never a good idea to make resolutions during the holiday season, I decided when I drew up my secret goals for the year that I was going to make a concerted effort to loose some of these extra pounds. So, by talking about it here, I guess I am making a real commitment to do something (of course as a sporadic blogger, I can just stop making entries if I fail). I have a bit of a crutch since a friend and neighbor had embarked on a serious campaign to do the same thing, so now I can turn it into a one-sided competition (he won’t know) which will maybe spur me on. So, I start the year at an even 200 pounds (first time I have ever admitted to anyone that I reached that point) so now I will see what I can do over the year. This probably means I’m going to have to cut back on the wine too – gee – that’s going to be tough.