Seriously? You think this is a good idea??
At 4 a.m. I made the frosting and spread it on the pan of cinnamon rolls. They look good enough to eat. But I'm waiting until later today when my fried brain won't care about calories, sugar, or anything else except something that tastes too good.
The Portuguese word for young is jovem, and the word for yesterday is ontem. Those are so close that I get them confused. There's also something poetic about those two words sounding so much alike.
Eu era jovem ontem.
Hoje eu sou velho. (Today I am old.)
Thinking about those two words - joven and ontem - got me thinking about being old. Maybe 4 a.m. isn't a great time for constructive thinking, but it happened and got me fairly worked up. So here I am at almost 7 a.m. with breakfast in me, and just now an English muffin and third cup of coffee, thinking I should put those thoughts on
People say old folks should go ahead and do it. Want seconds of dessert? Go for it! Always wanted to smoke cigars? Why not? Dreamed of a trip to Algiers? Go!
The reasoning is something like, "What's the worst that can happen?" If it messes up the rest of your life, or even kills you, well, you weren't that far away from being dead anyway. At least you're going out with a sense of freedom, abandon, and joy.
You can stick to that strict diet, drive a Volvo sedan, and act like a responsible adult at every turn, but to what end? You might live another three years, but they won't be any fun and you'll lay there on your deathbed thinking of all the things you wished you'd done.
When does one get old enough that this freedom from constraints is allowable? That's tough, because we never know how long we're going to live. The adage, "If I'd known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself" may apply to the 70-year old who ends up living to 95. Then again, how many 95 year olds can cut loose beyond a second helping of ice cream? Even the donut is hard to chew at that age, and someone else has to cut it into bite size pieces.
Men are supposed to get annual prostate checks from ages 40 to 70. Why does it stop at 70? Because prostate cancer is almost always of the slow growing kind and you're more likely to die from another age-related issue than late onset prostate cancer, making the treatment worse than the disease. So is 70 some kind of benchmark for the aforementioned freedom from constraints?
This matters to me because my next birthday is #70.
And besides never again hearing the words, "drop 'em and bend over" I'd like more ice cream.
OK, I'm not a huge fan of ice cream, but BACON....!
But if 70 is the threshold, is it really to early to get a start on it?
It occurs to me that this is closely related to the bucket list line of thinking. Which causes me to think, "What's on my bucket list? What would you do if you didn't have the constraints of acting like a mature, responsible adult?"
Let's start by eliminating from the list anything that is illegal, immoral, or inappropriate for a child of God. But that's a reasonable limitation, and it leaves lots of room for fun stuff.
OK, married people must also take into account the desires of their mates. I'm not just me, I'm us. And I need to think about us when making decisions.
There's still lots of appealing things, at least appealing to me. You might find them the equivalent of Brussel sprouts, but the good news: I don't have to approve your list either. Setting and achieving fitness goals that, on paper, makes no sense for someone my age is fun. Learning Portuguese when I don't really need it, raising goats....
Pam should live for a very long time, because if I was totally on my own setting a PR goal for dips might be considered mild. How simply could I live? And what could I do with the money I'd save?
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