The most unlikely things can make you feel young again.
Yesterday, I was at my elderly mother in law's, helping her in the final stages of downsizing and moving to be closer to family where I live in upstate New York. My son was with us.
My son works in a machine shop (dirty, smelly work) and drives an old beat up 1998 Ford Explorer.
He needed gas, and we needed to pick up a couple of pizzas for dinner. So, away we went.
Such an innocent phase, "away we went". It's a process for him to have a passenger in his car. Seat latches are tricky and he has to go through an operation to pull the seat back so a passenger can get in. There's a huge step up, too, huge at least to a 62 year old woman with an arthritic knee.
I managed the step up the first time, but not the second time. I landed on my rear end "plop" right on the floor rug. The dirty floor rug, in a vehicle smelling of machine shop.
And I started to laugh uncontrollably.
I don't know why, but that undignified landing on my rear made me feel young again. I laughed and giggled for the next few minutes.
My son can drive me crazy (he knows all my buttons and doesn't hesitate to push them) but he has a heart of gold. (Just don't tell anyone I said so.)
He says I don't laugh enough. It's true. Sometimes I feel like all the worries of the world are on my shoulders.
But, for a minute, on the floor of that Ford Explorer, I forgot them.
Incidentally, the pizza was delicious.
I'm sorry to hear that life is getting you down. Yet, in every life there is winter just before the spring.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I laugh for the strangest reasons--a release valve, if you like. Just the act of laughing lifts your spirits. Come over here and I'll pull the rug from under you. See if that does the trick.
It's so good to laugh. It's great that you didn't get mad but instead enjoyed the crazy of it all.
ReplyDeleteI have a bum knee, too, Alana, that is TRYING to convince me that I'm old. I regularly converse with the stupid thing and insist that I am NOT old just because my knee doesn't always feel cooperative! I think you're only as old as you allow yourself to feel, Alana, and I love it that you burst into giggles instead of into tears!
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