On Getting Older

In just over a month, I will turn 70. That number doesn’t feel so old to me anymore. In fact, it feels about right.

There’s an old saying that you’re as young as you feel. Can’t say I feel young—at least, not physically. My body has been aging prematurely since I developed scleroderma in my late twenties. In some ways, I don’t really know what it’s like to be thirty or forty, or even fifty, since I was always ahead of the aging curve. I’ve been living for decades with aches and stiffness and body parts that don’t work and a sense of physical vulnerability that normally wouldn’t arise until late middle age. I used to envy friends who were healthy and energetic when I couldn’t be. I wondered what that would feel like.

Not anymore. Everyone’s caught up. Meanwhile, my decades of experience with premature aging have made the onset of the normal range of physical limitation that come with this time of life just another blip. Aches and pains when I wake up or rise after sitting for a while. Check. Need to manage my energy. Check. Lots of specialists appointments. Check. Need to manage multiple meds. Check. Harder to walk than before. Check. Eyes too dry and tire more easily. Check. Hands giving me problems, hips, feet, knees. Check, check, check, check.

It adds up, and I certainly understand how distressing it is when all this starts to happen, whatever your age. But I never expected scleroderma to give me an advantage. It has forced me to learn how to pay attention to what ails me, problem solve, adapt, get proper medical attention, manage my health care, and most importantly, focus on what I can do rather than on what I can’t. After forty-plus years of living with it all, turning 70 doesn’t really seem like a big deal.

In fact, it feels like an accomplishment. And I’m looking forward to it.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.

Image: Volodymyr Hryshchenko