I’m not past my prime – or did I miss the memo?

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥   @HeartSisters

According to the Cambridge dictionary,  being in one’s prime is described as  being in the best, most successful, most productive stage, e.g. “The horse retired from racing although still in his prime.”  By comparison, being past one’s prime means that the horse has been put out to pasture.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that metaphor this past week – not so much about horses, but about being “past my prime” – especially when we talk about women, especially women living with heart disease or other life-altering diagnoses. Yet this past week, I feel like I’ve had a crash course reminding me of what I used to be able to accomplish both physically and mentally when I was “in my prime”. But where did my prime go? And did I notice it leaving? 

That reminder hit home this past week when I offered to help my daughter get ready to move.   L. was moving from the little Arts & Crafts bungalow that’s been home for 15+ years, and her detailed plans seemed clear and organized. She’d booked a big moving truck for 11 a.m. on the big day, and yes, even a “move-out” cleaning team who would arrive as soon as the big truck drove off to unload at the new house. The incoming owners would be taking legal possession of the little house at 5 p.m. sharp – lots of time to finish up last-minute sorting, packing and that final cleaning. Easy-peasey.

All week, my role has been to walk my granddaughter E. to her summer day camp early each morning, and then come back to help her Mum sort, pack and lift heavy boxes – along with assorted friends and family who kindly volunteered to help, some bearing muffins!

But every evening when I drove back to my home, I felt like a frail old lady. Everything hurt.

And when the truck didn’t show up on moving day, we knew things were going sideways fast.

This nightmare turned into a final 11-hour day for us as Larissa desperately tried to remedy the moving truck catastrophe. The stress-o-meters were on overdrive, and by the time the moving company’s owner finally stepped up to call in reinforcements, we were too wiped out to celebrate. It took two days, friends and family lugging boxes into their own cars to save the day, and three different moving companies, but I’m so relieved to report that Larissa’s household belongings were finally moved to the new house.

If you’ve moved recently (or ever), you know the basics:  MOVING IS HELL!  How had I forgotten that?  When my daughter offered to make me a coffee on that last exhausting day in the little house, I replied. “YES PLEASE  – I need a coffee with lots of BAILEY’S in it – and maybe an ATIVAN!”  (I was kidding about the Ativan. Sort of. . .)     😉

Every sore muscle and swollen joint in my body felt well past its prime, screaming out by bedtime for ice packs, deep massage, a hot shower and some heavy-duty pain meds.

I felt most stressed during this whole stressful experience because, as the long days of this week went on, I couldn’t help comparing my bone-crushing fatigue to my old pre-heart attack, pre-arthritis self – back when I was clearly in my prime as a younger/stronger/healthier distance runner. I had always been the kind of cheerful high-energy extrovert who is first to arrive and last to leave. I said YES to every new challenge my bosses threw at me. In the year leading up to my heart attack, in fact, I went into work every Sunday (my unpaid day off, by the way) because I believed I had to meet an impossible major project deadline (which I ultimately failed to meet – because just before deadline, I suffered a widow-maker heart attack).

Now, as I write this in the post-moving day calm of morning coffee out in my beautiful balcony garden, I’m wondering if I might actually be “past my prime” in some areas, but still “in my prime” in others.

As the feisty writer Zoe Williams wrote in her column in The Guardian about women in their prime:

“The word ‘prime’ has no fixed meaning – which is to say, everyone knows it relates to some murky, manosphere combo of fertility, beauty and hip-to-waist ratio, but there will always be some dude with the brass neck to argue that what he is really talking about is competence or self-assurance.“

How do women know when we’re past our prime? Does it happen suddenly one day? Or does it happen slowly and gradually without really even noticing – until one day we’re wearing wrist and knee braces and popping Tylenol Arthritis and heart pills every day?

Remember last year when (now former) CNN journalist Don Lemon announced on air that former U.S. presidential hopeful Nikki Haley was no longer “in her prime”?  He then mansplained what he meant by that evaluation, adding: “A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s, 30s, and maybe her 40s.”  At that time, Nikki Haley was a geriatric 51. Lemon was 57 – but that’s probably only 27 in prime Don Lemon years. . .

Besides Lemon’s insulting opinion about women, do others believe that choosing orthopedic braces or pain meds define us as being “past our prime”?  

For me, these remedies have turned out to be my new super powers! 

For example, when excruciating osteoarthritis symptoms in my left knee made joining my weekly walking buddies too painful,  I worried that the orthopedic surgeon I’d been referred to would recommend knee replacement surgery. To my surprise, the surgeon’s key recommendation was a high-tech orthopedic brace clinic where the staff fitted me with a skookum German-made Bauerfeind knee brace to wear during my walks – which made a surprising and almost immediate difference in my pain symptoms.  The best moment about that ortho consult was when the surgeon spontaneously told me:

“Let’s get you back to your walking groups!”

I’m so thankful to strap on my knee (and wrist) braces every day because they help me do what I like doing – with minimal arthritis pain. I’m also thankful for my regular doses of nitro spray (which the late pioneer cardiologist Dr. Bernard Lown called a “wonder drug”)  because nitro can almost always ease worsening symptoms of refractory angina and help me manage scary cardiac chest pain.

And compared to my younger, fitter, healthier self, I’m now in my prime at new skills I’ve rarely demonstrated until lately.

I’m now in my prime at refusing to spend the precious time I have left on this earth with annoyingly rude people.

I’m now in my prime at standing up for myself and my family.

I’m now in my prime at choosing to do more of what I love doing and far less of what I don’t.

I’m now in my prime about trusting that my long years of experience, knowledge and wisdom are worth trusting.

And I’m also the kind of person who’s now in my prime of afternoon napping and being a doting Baba to my two delightful grandkids.

But I’m now – not unhappily – well past my prime in doing 11-hour work shifts anymore.

♥

Image: Conger Design, Pixabay

Q:   In which parts of your life are you “in your prime”?

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NOTE FROM CAROLYN:  I wrote more about the transformational experience of becoming a patient in my book, “A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease”  (Johns Hopkins University Press). Find it at your favourite locally-owned bookshop, or order it online (paperback, hardcover or e-book) at Amazon, or order it directly from Johns Hopkins University Press (and use their code HTWN to save 30% off the list price when you order)