No, I’m not dying–anymore than anyone else. But I have realized that my subconscious has been telling me a false story.
Somehow I had convinced myself that I was healthier than other people, that I would live a long life without issues, that I would not be affected by my mom’s dementia or my dad’s bad knees and heart. I remember watching my mom, who had spinal stenosis, get her back stretched by a physical therapist. She had knee replacement surgery. At one point she developed such serious back issues she used a wheel chair. Compression fracture, they said. I hated to see her in such pain.
I was going to be a different as I aged. I was going to stay young.
After all, I exercise- both weight-bearing and weight-lifting. I eat well, mostly vegetables, beans, and tofu. I’ve cut my alcohol use (probably not enough), and I try to fast from dinner at 6pm until the next morning (almost 12 hours). I do yoga twice a week, I journal, I meditate.
But yesterday I received the results of my bone density test, and I have a -2.6 score, which means I officially have osteoporosis of the spine. No symptoms yet. But suddenly my world turned upside down.
How could this be, I thought. This diagnose has brought me back to reality. No one escapes dying. And, as I move through my 70’s, I will be facing aging and health issues like most people do. My eyes are bad. My thumb arthritis keeps me from many yoga positions. My gut biome has been disturbed for years. And my gray hair is becoming dry and wiry. I have dark red splotches on my hands. I have not escaped.
But no one has. And I don’t need to be a baby about this. Others deal with this and far worse. Get over it.
Or at least– do all I can to stay healthy and enjoy life. We will all eventually die. I don’t want to spend the last years of life worrying about it.
Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose. Carl Jung