The Ups and Downs of Growing Old/I Don't Bounce Back Like I Used To
After breaking my back in the autumn of 2023, I came to realize one thing immediately. I don't bounce back like I used to. When I was young and growing up on the farm back home in Kansas, we lived in an old two-story farmhouse where all the kids' bedrooms were upstairs. I can recall bounding up and down those steps, day in and day out, without even breaking a sweat. Just for fun sometimes, I'd come down the steps every other one. These days, I steady myself with my cane as I gingerly step-down taking care not to fall. As a young mother with three children in tow, I used to delight in hauling baskets full of wet laundry to the clothesline each Saturday. It was a task that I really enjoyed knowing full well that the clean clothes would smell like sunshine and the great outdoors! Now it is a huge chore to carry much more than a couple of pounds because of the strain it puts upon my sorely aching back. There was a time that I rode ...