These signs can be seen at various points around Wales; a warning to slow down and make sure you don’t drive into some shuffling old people. Lately I’ve been wondering if I could order one to hang on my back.
First, a disclaimer: I am in great health. I am fit, hale and healthy…except for when I’m not.
That is, when I’m hit with random wonky aches that sideline me. For awhile it was sharp pains that felt like hot long needles poking through the joints of my toes. This would happen at night, waking me with the red-poky pain. I decided the only remedy was to focus and immerse myself completely into the pain, and mercifully, if I brought all my attention to that particular point, it would pass relatively quickly.
This was NOT something I’d bother going to a doctor about. I knew it would pass. And what exactly would I say, “Yes, please send me for an MRI for random poky toe pains that are over in a few seconds.”
Seriously. I think medical professionals have a few bigger fish to fry (even if I’m sure they could have cooked a few smelts off the heat of my painful feet).
And then, like so many of these kind of things, I only recently noticed that it hadn’t happened in quite a while. In fact, I can’t think of the last time it happened, and trust me, those red hot needles were a pretty regular happening.
Which brings me to the next thing, a strange hitching up of my hip where it suddenly goes weak and I walk with a stuttered random limp. It seems to be referred pain from the my right butt cheek. WTH?
But I know that this too will pass.
These are not woe-is-moi health complaints, because as I mentioned, I truly feel blessed with great health. In fact, I am more often amazed that everything works as well as it does. There are so many parts having to synchronize and spin and pump and do whatever it is our bodies do on a regular basis to keep us in that good ol’ state of homeostasis.
We all know, that from the second we come into this life, we are heading toward our ultimate end. And since we die by degrees, maybe bits and pieces just break down from overuse and general wear and tear. If we’re lucky, the cells repair themselves and settle back to humming along.
That is, until one day, things quit humming altogether.
For now, these odd bodily glitches, hip-hitches and poky pains of mine, merely flare up like a car throwing the odd gasket (do cars even have gaskets any more. More to the point, what exactly IS a gasket?) or a horse suddenly coming up lame.
In other words, it simply is.
My job is to pay attention, remain curious and breathe into the space while allowing it to be and most importantly to accept how it is right now. If I manage to pull that off, a funny thing usually happens. It passes.
I suppose that one day some of this might not pass. And then I’ll be back to the beginning of this post; wearing a sign and eventually succumbing to all of it before taking the ultimate big rest. You know…the big sleep, the deadly doze, the good night nurse….
“She’s passed over,” so often said in hushed tones.
Really? Passed to where? What’s up with all the euphemisms? How about we just say she’s DEAD?
Life is a big fat circle.
All we can do is hang on and enjoy the ride for as long as we get. Sometimes we’re riding up on top of the wheel and other times that sucker is crushing our heads (or my toes or my silly right hip). And then, like coming up after a long-deep dive, we grab a happy lungful of perfect air and realize we’re once again on top screaming our lungs out in a big wahoo!
Enjoy the ride while you can. It’s pretty freakin’ amazing.
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Just bury me in Oaxaca Mexico where no one really dies, they just go away and return once a year for a graveside party.
Amen Michele! I hereby declare that I am going to be in Mexico for next year’s graveside parties. They know how to do it up with style (and marigolds!).
Got tingles listening to the Lion King music and, yes, I get the odd bout of hip hitches … almost lose my balance as the hip wants to give way. Sometimes happens 3 or 4 days in a row and then I’m good to go.
I love that Lion King music too…there’s something thrilling and inspiring wrapped up in that sound.
Hmmm…maybe the hip hop hiccups are a genetic thing:)
The African music always gives me shivers down my spine…… Perhaps a long lost memory of the country of my birth and when I visited it at 18.
Let’s indeed enjoy the ride fully!
Catherine, I don’t doubt for a minute that the African music is entwined in your DNA. I think our birth geography and indeed, our ancestral geography is somehow imprinted within us.
Hope we’re both in for a great ride!
Oh yeah, this resonated on so MANY levels! Especially the mini-rant about saying the word dead, or died. So in denial, our western society is.
When we were in Australia we would see signs like this, and also signs cautioning “Aged Zone”. There were islands in the intersections specifically for slow folks to rest at while trying to cross the streets. All cars were to stop if these islands were occupied, and WAIT for the slow-pokes to finish crossing. Loved it!