With another birthday comes new gratitude – Buffalo News

By Victoria Wienke

As I prepare for another fast approaching birthday, realization has set in that I now have more past memories to cherish than those I will be building in the future.

Its a humbling thing but I now know why my mom and dad always talked so much about the past and constantly relived and retold those same stories. Those memories were the most cherished and prevalent in their minds. Apparently our long-term memory takes precedence over our short-term memory.

I find myself forgetting simple things. As a result, I am constantly writing lists or notes to avoid this forgetting. Simple acts like, why did I come into this room? Why did I open the refrigerator?

I also appear to get easily distracted as I will take something to the basement when in the middle of cleaning, only to get down there and start something in my craft room and realize an hour later that I was in the middle of cleaning upstairs. Hmm, am I on the verge of Alzheimers?

For some reason I always thought that things like this happened when you got old and I dont consider myself old but I do know old is fast approaching. I see signs every day.

I go to the gym and work out to keep my body flexible and moving. Yet when I come home and sit down to read the morning paper for an hour, I have a problem getting up out of that chair. Often times my body creaks and moans in the process. It makes me wonder why I go the gym or what would I be like if I didnt go?

Victoria Wienke.

Ive also found that putting on my clothes in the morning is no longer a stand-on-one-foot operation. I now have to sit down to put on my socks and jeans or else I fall over attempting to do it the old way. Somehow the floor also appears to have gotten farther away when did that happen?

If I go to sit on the mat at the gym to do my stretching exercises (which are now mandatory, according to my doctor), I must be very careful reaching for the mat or I end up falling over. Getting up off that mat is no picnic, either.

This can also happen when I bend down to pick something up off the floor at home and often have to make sure there is a piece of furniture to grab on to. It used to be much easier but I cant decide if its my sense of balance or if my arms and legs dont work like they used to.

I distinctly remember that not that long ago I used to just bend at my knees and I could slowly just go down to the floor and sit cross-legged. Well, that doesnt happen anymore.

As I watch many of our friends battle cancer or other life-threatening disease like novel coronavirus which has turned into a global pandemic, I appreciate the fact that a few aches and pains or memory lapses are better than the alternative. This current situation has made this world into a scary movie scene where authorities are telling us that we need to social distance ourselves and have isolation from everyone only making trips out of our homes for necessities.

As a result, Ive decided to embrace this birthday, cherish time with family members, count my blessings, think positive and take each day forward as Gods blessing. It beats the alternative.

Victoria Wienke, of Hamburg, refuses to complain about the aches and pains of aging.

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With another birthday comes new gratitude - Buffalo News

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