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Aging and Your Changing Health
How it impacts your self-identity
I saw an interesting post on Reddit this morning. The individual posting had never taken any medications or been hospitalized before age 70. Then, out of the blue, he developed a chronic heart condition. Now, he no longer sees himself as a “healthy person.” Instead, he now sees himself as an “old, unhealthy person.” And he is looking for advice on how to deal with that.
While not everyone deals with sudden health changes, the truth is that there is an inevitable physical decline as we age. Janice MacDonald discusses this in her excellent article Ex-Pat Life Isn’t Always Easy; Advancing Age Only Adds To the Difficulties.
My Story of Physical Change
At 25 years old, I became an avid runner. I worked my way up from barely being able to run to the corner to running the Charleston, West Virginia 15-miler in an eight-minute pace. In 1983, at 30, I was a member of the 44th Medical Brigade cross-country team, running seven-minute miles.
Then, in 2013, at age 60, I found myself with a hip problem that began to limit my running. I had no issues running five miles, but afterward, my right hip would lock whenever I attempted to rise from a sitting position. And unlocking was very painful. As a result, I dropped down to three…