I’m hungry! I am fasting before my annual physical exam, which has not been annual, exactly, thanks to the pandemic. There’s absolutely nothing about this exam that I am looking forward to, and in fact, it will lead to more things to not look forward to (at least one: a mammogram).

I find so many of us surprised to change as we age. Probably because there’s very little physical change we attribute to aging until we get to 40. If you haven’t experienced it, you’ve heard: hangovers feel worse and last longer; pounds cling to your body stubbornly; you suddenly must hold everything you read about 5 feet from your face. You didn’t do anything differently, and one day you wake up and your body is changing — things are harder, more difficult, more annoying.

This past year and a half, the two age-related changes I can’t escape: I think I need bifocals, and there’s a lot more gray hair on my head now!

But I’m not surprised, and I’m not feeling at all resistant to these changes. There’s no near-term plan for Lasik or other corrective vision surgery, nor am I applying chemicals to turn those gray hairs dark again. It’s not really how I’m wired to insist that things never change, and frankly I just don’t want to work that hard.

I’m mostly putting my energy and focus on the small, incremental changes to my lifestyle that minimize the aches and pains of growing older. I exercise not to win bodybuilding competitions, but to ache less than I need to… and to keep my annual physical from concluding in a referral to a heart specialist. I try to eat better, without sacrificing pleasure, for the same reasons. I work on putting things in proper perspective, staying curious and supportive, for mental and emotional well-being as challenges get more complex and heavy in this chapter of my life.

In other words, doing the same dumb stuff, only slower and at less personal cost to myself. ;)