Some H-words of Aging

I’ve said it before that we’re aging from the minute we’re born so if you can’t identify with any of these H-words of aging, wait for it….  Ha-ha and Hallelujah.

In our crowd, instead of showing off our hip and happening lives, there’s increasing talk of hip replacements and how is that working out for you?  We’ve learned that it’s just courteous to ignore the obvious sprawling hips from years of sitting, or just years.

Hair is a concern, as in wash away the gray or you can’t get it to go away, from all the wrong places.  Or you don’t have enough of it.  Hair can be a problem either way.  In all of our years of accumulated wisdom, we know that one lives through one heartrending hairdo-fail after another and we have pictures to prove it.

Hernias and hemorrhoids appear out of nowhere when you forget to lift with your knees.  Then there are knees which need supplemental oiling or you begin to move like the tin man.  Get this, when exercise is the treatment for knee pain but in order to do the exercise, you need pain medication.  Go figure.

Home improvement is no longer about decoration so much as it’s about making it an easier space to live in.  We’re adapting our habitat to suit the new us.

Even if you’re not a “hugger,” those of us at both extremes of the aging spectrum, grandparents and little kids are the best at giving hugs.  We know the value of a good hug. It’s helpful to hug.

History can be problematic.  Who of us hasn’t got history?  But remembering it is when it gets tricky.

Hysterectomy.  It’s okay, ovaries and uterus are just extra baggage and obsolete at this point, probably the feminine appendix of aging.  Why bother?

Instead of a brilliant but sneaky internet thief, a hacker seems to be one who has the persistent cough from heretofore unclaimed mystery allergies.  Or having been hacked, is the telltale sign of an aging Facebook user.

It has been noted that one’s hands and neck cannot lie as to your age.  Rings no longer fit over problematic knuckles and scarves become our friends. Do you remember the beautiful Doris Day singing, “Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera, sera.?”

There are still hoops to jump through.  But now I realize it’s not my circus and I’m not your clown.

Hinky is when the whatsit goes wrong.  And you don’t get to your age without trying to right a whole bunch of wrongs which have gone way past hinky.

Habaneros and heartburn go hand-in-hand, but throw caution to the wind and spice up your life a bit.  After all, Arnold Schwarzenegger said in Kindergarten Cop, “it’s not a tumor.”

A hullabaloo isn’t so much a type of groovy dance move, as the dance we do when trying to talk sense to a customer service rep on the telephone.

Honey-trap?  I don’t think so.  I could probably get over the temptation of sweets if I could just have salt.  But no such luck.

Speaking of luck, some folks don’t believe in it, unless they’re Irish.  Every detective I’ve seen on television has said at one time or another,” I don’t believe in coincidence, “or happen-chance.  But, the first cousin of happen-chance is happenstance and that is my middle name: random occurrence.

I believe in random.  In fact, I’m a big fan of Matthew 5:45 – God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust, alike.  I also understand, I Peter 5:9 – Stand firm in your faith and the knowledge that your siblings throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering as you are.

Home is where the heart is as well as heaps of housekeeping.  Dirt happens, especially in the entry portals of aging amateur horticulturists, which most of us have become as we’ve aged.

Humility is easier when you no longer need to impress anybody.  And honesty is the best policy because when you’ve aged a bit, remembering a lie, like a spy, is too complicated.

Hash can be a ground up meal, a kind of psychedelic drug, the re-working of old or familiar material, a symbol on a keyboard which was substituted for the word “number” or even “pound;” but now facilitates the search for a topic of interest on the internet (as in hashtag #).

“Get your motor running, head out on the highway, looking for adventure, in whatever comes our way” (Born to Be Wild 1968 Steppenwolf). A highway can be called a motorway, byway, or freeway, but most of us call it a road and we all go down one, on our way….  And, we don’t go halfway down that road and turnaround; for us it’s all or nothing.  We’ve habituated to this path and we’re taking it to its limit (reference Eagles 1975 Don Henley/Glenn Lewis Frey/Randy Meisner).

Back in the day, “heavy” was a cool and groovy word for deep, now it just means overweight or a crap spot on the BMI index.

Hindsight is what we wished we had our whole lives while waiting for wisdom to kick in.

Headlights nowadays are lower on the chassis and shaped funny but we’ll get used to them.  It’s all a blur at night anyway, thanks to halogen.

“Happiness is morning and evening,” or so goes the Charlie Brown Happiness Is song.  So, whether you’re in the morning or the evening of aging, happiness can be your signature.

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