Aches and pains

My back aches today. I still have not adjusted to the fact that at any time, for no reason, I may experience aches and pains. I don't think this was true when I was younger...at least I never noticed it then. Is it because I was so busy running around after kids that I didn't have time to feel them? No, I think they are a middle-age phenomenon.

Some mornings when I get out of bed the legs feel as though they are made of wood. They don't seem to want to bend and they surely do not want to walk anywhere. It takes me a few steps just to straighten upright and then I have to make forward motion. What an effort.

Of course its not always like this. Some days I feel great and sometimes I have not had an ache or pain in recent memory. But today - well my back is just killing me. No reason for it. Just too much sitting or something.

It's like traveling in the car. I used to be able to do an eight hour trip and think nothing of it. We could drive for hours on end, bound out of the vehicle when we arrived and not even think about having to go to the bathroom. Now when my husband and I stop after three hours of driving we can barely climb out of the seats to go into the rest stop. But the intense need to get into that bathroom moves me forward. The legs, the back, the feet - everything seems to be screaming!

How did this happen? No one ever told me that I'd feel this way. I remember my father moaning and groaning when he got up from his chair - but he was much older then than I am now. Then again, when he was the age I am now I was so busy running around after those same kids, I probably would not have noticed.....