22 3 / 2012
The Joys of Aging: In which I Write Too Much about Bladder Issues
Dear readers, I am tired and old, so I am going to make this post short and sweet.
Now, anyone who has ever shared a bathroom with me knows that nothing I do is “short and sweet.” My family’s ceiling is peeling like the dry skin of a teenager on Acutane (trust me, I’ve been there) thanks to my inability to shower in under fifteen minutes, and I shudder to think of how many women have suffered UTIs due to the random misfortune of falling behind me in a restroom line. Heck, anyone who’s read my blog knows I meander, and not like a cute, grandma spinning a yarn type a way, but rather, like a deranged, hyperactive kindergarten class bunny that you’re forced to chase through your backyard.
However, I am starting to feel more like the grandma spinning a yarn as I sense my age is catching up to me. That may not be the right expression for a 22 year old. If my age was really catching up to me, I’d be spending more time forging drunken relationships in Murray Hill and caring about The Hunger Games than popping Tums and complaining about how frigid it always is. Alas, in case you couldn’t tell from previous posts regarding my struggles with technology and love of TLC reality programming, I’m an old soul. Or at least a middle-aged soul.
Unlike my attempts with most of my character defects, I am not even going to try to irrationally blame this on moving back home to the suburbs. I was well aware of this trait in college. You don’t exactly feel like a spry, young thing when you pass out on your couch before midnight after drinking a vodka Red Bull.
Hell, the middle-ager has been lurking in me since I was but a young lass. Remember when Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek were really popular? Well, I don’t because I was too busy watching Frasier after my bath. Let me tell you, references to Cheers spin-offs do not make you the most popular gal on the little league team. While most adolescents gamely stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning at slumber parties, I was the first to crumble at around 11. But for the grace of god did my friends choose not to prey on the naive heavy sleeper with acts of lewd facial drawings or dunking my hands in warm water.
Not that it takes much to make me have to pee. You see, even more than my middle age mentality, I have a middle age body. I don’t have to dye the gray yet. The menopause mustache has not yet arrived, though the waxers at Beauty Mania would care to differ on that one. My skin is as wrinkle free as someone who developed a stress-related ulcer in ninth grade’s could be.
However, on the inside, I bear all the hallmarks of an over-the-hill physiological system. As mentioned, I have the bladder of an octogenarian. I should pay Starbucks rent for all the time I have spent in their facilities—-and without buying a drop of coffee (yeah, I’m that kind of person; in my defense, the coffee just feeds the bathroom cycle!). I give myself 3-5 years before I am wearing Depends for extended car rides.
Now, I know many young people-and yes, especially my XX peers-are known for their copious bathroom trips, but there are other bodily-related issues that make me feel like an old fogie. By the way, the fact that I just used the expression “old fogie” has officially proved that I am one. As extra evidence, I’m including a non-exhaustive compilation of my elderly persons’ health issues, otherwise known as “List of personal qualities that I will NEVER mention in an OKCupid profile.”
For one, I have a trick knee. As if it weren’t bad enough watching senior citizens jog briskly on treadmills as I cling for dear life, it turns out I can’t even run while gripping with two hands. I haven’t even made it through half an episode of “Chopped” before I am vigorously massaging my kneecap and wishing I had some extra IcyHot on me.
This condition may or may not be related to my weak ankles and corn-ridden feet. My grandmother and mother instilled in me the value of sensible shoes. I am probably the only girl who wore orthopedics to her bat mitzvah because her grandmother feared she’d topple over on the bimah. Well, lo and behold, before I could ever afford Sex and the City shoes, my feet are ruined. Forget platform pumps or Jimmy Choos. I can’t even wear flats. Instead, I wear Anne Klein oxfords that seem to scream “Hello, I have three children, love Fifty Shades of Grey, and live in Massapequa.”
I was just about to start writing another paragraph on my bad back (oh, what four years of high school textbooks will do to a pubescent girl’s spine!), but then I realized I needed to stop the kvetching. Vey iz mir, even I, who lives in a house where medically-related complaints are the focus of most of our dinner conversations, know my limits. I may be an old soul, but I am not such an alta kocker yet that I don’t know when to put a kibosh on the complaints. So, dear reader, I am going to sign off here, pop a little Pepto for my tummy, and rest my weary bones.
