Seniors You Can Still Do Whatever You Want, Keep On Walking On That Magic Carpet Even With Aching Knees Elita Sohmer Clayman

I wrote an article a few days ago about obtaining a knee brace to help the aching knee. The orthopedic doctor suggested it and I got it and the first one was too thick and made the good knee feel the bad knee hitting against it. Then I went back on Monday and they gave me a new one and Tuesday, I went back again and the orthotist adjusted the number two one and I am again wearing it. It is cumbersome too, but I guess I have to get used to it before giving up on it.I try not to give up on practically anything in life, especially now, as a senior. It is easier to give up, than to continue on.

Here are some examples of me not giving up, think about your life and the many times you did not give up; and how proud of yourself you were when you conquered the problem or should I say you over powered or defeated that particular barrier in your life.

I wanted at age eleven to go to an accelerated junior high ( now called middle schools) as my brother did because I did not want him to get ‘ahead’ of me in education. So I persevered and studied hard and I did get in the school. I wanted to become a model when graduating high school, Dad said no to the idea, we listened to our parents in those days, so I organized a  fashion show through a local department store and modeled in it and produced and directed it. That was my model accomplishing time.

I wanted to marry my husband and waited two years until he asked me.That was OK because we were still young. I wanted two children and was lucky to have one of each sex.  I wanted to make Mom’s life pleasant after Dad passed on; and helped to steer her to going on trips out of the country and having a fine time. I wanted to dance and you all know how that turned out. I wanted to be slim and went to Weight Watchers and obtained that wish. There are many things we desire, want and we should not let obstacles deter us.

Now my new dream is to get the aching knee back into shape, so I can dance next year in the Atlantic Ballroom competition next June 2013.That is a long way off, so I have plenty of time to try and consummate that project in my life. I will try to fulfill, perfect and achieve this ideal idea of mine at age then seventy-eight years of age. Seventy-eight does not seem as old now, as it did when I was forty-eight.

When you are younger, you view older people with perhaps a feeling of wow, you are still doing things and you are almost eighty- vision. That vision has to be disseminated and the word eliminated from our current vocabulary. Older folks can do more things than ever believed even twenty years ago. People were told to take it easy if they had Arthritis. Now they are told to move around, exercise and still to live. Twenty years ago, people did not play sports or go back and get college credits towards even getting a degree late in life. Now people go online and can even get a certified degree from a college by taking online courses. Who would have believed something like that would even happen?

Asian people always revered and honored the older people. I believe here in this country, older people had jokes made about them wearing dentures, not driving at night, no love life and how they slowed down so much. This morning on The View, they talked about older people in nursing homes and various things about them and I thought some were a bit derogatorily. Barbara Walters who is about eighty-four made a comment that when she is eighty-nine, she will come and talk to them about what she can and cannot do. She looks pretty good for her age and certainly is an active senior adult. She need not wait for five years, to prove her activities right now.

I understand that to a seven year old child or a teen child, elderly grandparents seem quite old, but I think the teens of today realize that these family members are still active and vibrant and they are proud to brag about what their grandparents do, instead of what they can no longer do.

My grandmother was gone at age forty-eight and I never knew anything about her other than she liked to dress up and wore high heeled shoes even when she was cleaning the house.  At age forty-eight, she was probably seen as old then by her seven kids and so they thought to remember her with this thought that to them was unusual, about dressing up to do menial chores.

My grandchildren if they want can brag that Grammie still tries to ballroom dance, goes to eat out often, gets her hair done weekly to look nice, writes articles that are published and read by thousands and that she has had already 176 of them published on the HuntValley-Cockeysville.Patch.com.

Of course, in all, any, or one of our senior accomplishments, we owe our self the kudos, applause and the esteem of conquering the old stigma of being OLD.  As one of the old comedians, Jack Benny, would say “I am not old, I am thirty-nine.” He stuck to that theory even when he was in his seventies. I saw him in person when he was about that and he was playing the violin with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Lyric Theater here in Baltimore. Of course, he would interrupt his playing with jokes about being thirty-nine and make the audience laugh as they were praising his fine violin playing.

Many comedians are still working and making people laugh at some of their old jokes, plus their new ones.  Betty White is a good example of someone who turned ninety and is acting more than she ever did when she was younger, say at seventyish.

There is still time for adventures in life even as seniors and even if you have an aching knee like someone I know-me. I have the ambition to wear this stiff knee brace and hopefully, if things work out well, next year this time, I will be bragging to you, my readers, that this old lady, broad, senior, darling and still good looking lady, won six or seven awards from dancing in a competition with her former, again and now dance coach-John Dawson of Studio DNA in Pikesville, where she resides and also took up ballroom dancing again.

It is not chutzpah( gall, good nerve) to feel I can do it and you all can do it too, whether it is ballroom dancing, college returning, golfing, tennis, vacations to foreign lands, vacations here in this country, a cruise, anything you think you can do. We will then deserve kudos, applause, esteem and most of all self-confidence, that we are still here for hopefully a long time.

There is an expression that says “if you think, you cannot do it, do it anyway.”

So do it anyway or any way you can do it.Undertake, cause and produce anything you have been thinking about and make it a reality. Your undertaking, your causes and your accomplishments will make you proud of you and that is a wonderful experience. Senior can stand for Activity.

S  for super

E for elegant

N for now

I for individuality

O for outstanding

R for respect

A for accomplishment

C for  courage

T  for time

I for I can

V for Vigor

I for Intense

T for terrific

Y for You did it.

Life is like a magic carpet, you walk along the carpet, fast at first, then slower as you age and yet you are still walking on it.