I'm Having Ibuprofen for Lunch

I will confess to you that as I write this, I am wearing glasses. Not prescription glasses but rather those magnifying glass kind you get at the dollar store. Quite simply, the English alphabet letters on the computer screen are blurry these days. I see fine if the object of my interest is off in the distant yonder somewhere. But close up stuff gives me fits. I have come to realize something. I am aging. Granted I am not complaining. I’m at peace with the process. But it hurts a man’s pride to realize there are certain things he can no longer do. Like jump and touch the rim of a regulation basketball goal. I could do it now, but only with the aid of a trampoline. I read recently that a man’s ears and nose continue to grow throughout his entire lifespan. Splendid. At least you would think the positive of such a reality would be that one would gain the ability to hear and smell better. Not so much. There are times people are talking and I can only make out about two thirds of what they’re saying. I am then forced to use my imagination to attempt to logically fill in the rest. This gets me in trouble at times, especially at home. On a recent Sunday, a watch alarm rudely started beeping during the sermon. It was high noon and the watch was ready to eat, even though everyone knows that Baptists are not constrained by time limits. Anyway, I noticed that the alarm was creating a minor disturbance in the surrounding rows. Finally, my middle son punched me in the arm and whispered to his oblivious father, “Dad, cut your alarm off!” And to make it worse, I’m a deacon who is expected to be a role model of some sort. Backs don’t like aging. My 46-year-old back loudly complains every morning about having to get up. I now sleep with a pillow between my knees to relieve the strain. And since I can’t touch the rim anymore, I don’t play much basketball these days. I took up tennis a while back. Immediately I developed tennis elbow and something on the bottom of my feet called plantar fasciitis that hurts like the dickens. So I’ve moved on to racquetball. My younger buds get a kick out of seeing me arrive armored up in non-matching elbow pads, hunter safety glasses, my son’s wrestling knee pads, and a velcro forearm brace for my tennis elbow. Recently I was asked what I would be having for lunch after the racquetball match. “Ibuprofen,” I answered. Which reminds me of my daily pill routine. I start the morning with a reflux pill and sometimes a vitamin C pill for good measure. Before slipping into bed at night (where my pillow awaits its opportunity to be placed between my aching knees), I gulp down a cholesterol pill, a Centrum Cardio for good heart health, an aspirin for circulation, and a fish oil pill for the heck of it. So there you have it. I have bared all for the world to see. But don’t be surprised if you see this column appear again sometime in the near future. The aging process may cause me to forget that I’ve already written it.