If 60 is the new 40, shouldn't somebody tell my knees?

The curious never fail to ask me what happened. The curious are mostly people I have never met and am not likely to see again, but noticing my uneven gait, they feel the need to ask. I don’t feel obliged to tell them, but propriety dictates that I respond, so I say I was injured while sliding into third base. Invariably they pause, eyes scanning me from head to toe (is my nose growing?) and then laugh, guessing my answer is too preposterous to be true. I join in their laughter, and we move on.

The truth is, I popped my knee just walking across the room. I say popped because that was the sound it made an instant before my leg buckled and I landed on the floor in an undignified heap. As I recall, I was wearing sensible shoes that day, not flip flops, not pointy toes or platforms, not high heels. In fact I was dressed in a manner well befitting my sixty-plus years.  

But nobody told my knees.

Knees are peculiar objects. They’re designed to bend in one direction, but only so far. They act as shock absorbers, protecting the body from jarring motions, bending at angles that enhance walking, running, jumping and jogging or they hold steady for standing, locked into place by the sheer will of the knee owner, and nothing else. Mine must have forgotten how to function, for they just buckled. I tore the meniscus in one knee, fell to the floor, and suffered yet another of the many indignities of aging.  

I get the feeling it’s expected that the twenty-first century, sixty-year-old should be able to see as clearly, work-out as strenuously, eat as sparingly, move as nimbly, speak as fluently, sleep as peacefully, love as passionately, and laugh as heartily as the forty-year-old of past decades.

Not so!

I knew it would be a challenge to maintain my activity level and general lifestyle when I achieved the big Six-O. In fact, I started making adjustments to my lifestyle the day I turned forty. Today my heels are lower, my glasses thicker, and my fingernails shorter. I dare not indulge in a glass of iced tea or mug of cappuccino after four o’clock in the evening for fear of sleeplessness. I wear little eye makeup as I no longer can see well enough without my glasses to apply the darn thing without smudging. The nodding acquaintance I had with Miss Clairol in my forties has blossomed into a full-blown, love-hate relationship. And as for shedding hair – well let’s just say if I have to listen to my husband complain one more time about the hair on the bathroom floor, that dear balding partner is likely to be on the receiving end of a mighty thump in places better left unmentioned.

Still, there are small mercies: The plumbing functions well, even if I have to schedule relief sessions or run the risk of springing a leak; my heart beats out a steady cadence unaided by medical devices; the LDL, HDL and A1C are at appropriate levels; and, (wonder of wonders) I can still touch my toes. Once.

No sixty is not forty – it never was, it never will be - but sixty isn’t so bad. And in spite of an occasional early-morning twinge, these sixty-year-old knees still have the ability to whomp a soccer ball past a grandchild of sprightlier age. And that’s good enough for me.