No Spring Chickens

Okay. I'm not gonna beat around the proverbial bush.

The folks at the church where my husband serves... well, they're not exactly spring chickens. In fact, I'd say the median age is probably somewhere around 75 years old. And yeah... I know...

You're only as old as you think you are...

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional...

There's a twinkle, in your wrinkle...

I get it.

But when a semi-truck pulls in to the church parking lot, heaving with the weight of over one thousand pumpkins that need to be unloaded, one at a time... old is just old. The body wears out, the muscles aren't as strong as they once were, and the bones crack and pop like the Chicago Symphony's percussion section.

It's okay. It's not a judgement. It's just reality.

This is Ralph. He had his 84th Birthday a few months ago. Today in church, I asked him how he was feeling after unloading approximately 10,000 pounds of pumpkins, and he gave me a two-thumbs-up and a little nod-n-smile, as he audaciously said, "I feel great!"

Jerk.

I, on the other hand, spent a few hours serving as the official photographer, trying not to draw attention to myself, for fear that I might be recruited for the assembly line...

And making it a point instead, to draw attention to the slackers. I mean, come on. One tiny pumpkin at a time? Way to be aggressive.

But it wasn't long, before my stalling tricks were noticed, and I was urged to help carry a few of the larger pumpkins...

And then spent most of last night and part of this morning, realizing for the first time in my life, that there are several muscles in my back, that have never been used.

T.S. Elliot once said that, "the years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do more, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down." I believe T.S. Elliot may have been wrong. 'Cause 30 something, is turning out to be a pain. In every sense of the word.