Michael was getting tired. This was not unusual for him in the mid-afternoon.
He got up, stepped away from his computer, and decided it would be a good time for a walk. To avoid getting a sunburn on his balding head, he put on an old baseball cap from Breckenridge, Colorado.
Then, he stepped out the front door and set a brisk pace. His mind turned to a familiar topic. He kept finding evidence that he was getting older. Even though he didn’t drink beer much, he had acquired a beer belly during the pandemic, a time when he drank a lot of margaritas.
More distressing, his memory wasn’t what it had been. And he couldn’t solve physics problems as quickly as he used to. Not to mention the high blood pressure and cholesterol meds he needed to take now!
“How do people manage to age gracefully?” he thought.
Lacking a solution, he had read a philosophy book called Midlife on the topic. The advice given hadn’t provided him with any extraordinary “Ah ha!” moments. It just confirmed the fact that he wasn’t the only one to confront what it meant to be getting older.
He walked past the houses in the neighborhood until he reached a wooden bridge that led to the horse stables and the open land behind their community.
He loved walking on a warm day with a slight breeze. He knew that it was important to keep moving. A body at rest tends to stay at rest…
He also knew that thinking about getting older was not going to help him age gracefully!
He reminded himself that talking about these feelings was important. Karilyn, his wife, was a bit older than him. She had already dealt with some of the implications of getting older. He could trust her to listen to his concerns.
So, he decided to bring it up with her. Again. They didn’t see eye to eye on everything, but it was great to share his thoughts with the woman of his dreams.
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