You can't get there from here

A spontaneous thought this morning - aging is not an obstacle unless you're trying to get somewhere.  Shared this with Tom and he said, "You can think of it as sightseeing."  We have been married so long this made sense to me.  And we both remembered the one thing we remembered from one trip to Canada.

We don't remember where we were going, but we pulled off at a small town, walked into a bakery, and saw something we'd never seen before, butter tarts.  They melted in the mouth in a lovely confusion of pastry and buttery custard. They were heavenly.

So now I said, "We could make them for the holidays." I have many good ideas.  I have now printed out two recipes.  The one with more butter, more egg, more vanilla, and no corn syrup is more promising, though my shoulders are not up to rolling out pate brisee, and it will have to be refrigerated pie crust.

Well, just pausing along the road as I think about the news that came the slow way over the last couple of days.  And it is that the trouble in my spine is advancing.  Pain overriding the oxy, making it hard to sit at the table and enjoy a game.  The "severely damaged" vertebrae described by the lumbar MRI in June are now pinching nerves; I'm limping, and more often slightly dragging the right leg.  Headache.  This is called spinal stenosis, and when it's the result of osteoarthritis the treatments are exercise, build supporting muscles, and pain control.  There are a couple of antidepressants that help pain and sleep in some people.

I stopped here earlier today, but I still haven't thought of any way to wrap this up. Yesterday I felt better after crying a couple of times and deciding to go exercise.  To get serious about it.  And we did, and I did my back exercises as well as 17 1/2 minutes on the Nustep, stopping this side of exercise-caused pain.  I'm a believer in crying, having read that tears wash out certain chemicals, and having learned that my parents' ideas about what was strength were woefully misguided.

I'm thinking often about how wisdom is one thing, it is a sort of deep knowledge, cognitive, and emotions are another thing.  Surely you have a certain amount of grief as you lose strength and function.

And another thing - I don't have forever to wait for both rotator cuffs to heal so I can play guitar again. Began looking at digital technology for something I could play in much the same posture I use to type.  Maybe a Q-Chord.

Well, and thus.  You can't fix everything.  Just keep going - you'll come to -

You'll know it when you see it.
(There really are a number of these exits around the world.)
~~~~~
Here is an article about how emotional crying releases stress toxins, and more assurance that women are superior to men - at least, we have larger tear ducts.