Apr 28, 2023 4 min read

There’s a mean little riddle I have to play every morning these days.

“What will be the pain of the day?”

A doctor would probably answer the question with that ages-old cliche about the predictable aches and pains of old age. In another week I’ll be 64, and even typing that feels weird, but there I’ll be. This morning, it was my left foot. Yesterday it was my left earlobe. If my little irritations were kept in a Rolodex, I’d have the thing half full just from my last birthday.

Moving parts wear out. Some of my friends have already had knee and hip replacements, major shoulder surgery and expensive dental work. Last November, a surgeon went into my right knee to repair a torn meniscus, an injury he attributed to both my age and to my over-zealous cycling. I’ve been going with the cycling explanation, because to attribute that to age would mean I’m surrendering.

I think of my grandmother when she was about 64. Photos show a woman with somewhat slumped posture wearing a box hat, sensible black shoes and a hard handbag in the crook of her elbow. When I match that photo with the energetic woman I remember, I decide the “old” part of that was more the somewhat heavy way she was dressed, common back then. And in those years before photos and selfies, people weren’t sure how to pose for a camera. Underneath the matronly dress and the awkward squint, she probably didn’t look so old.

But I do remember her talking about how her bones would ache after a long day – the result of being on her feet working at her restaurant and yes, the accumulation of the years.

I have a long way to go in this life, and so I’ve decided to mostly ignore the pain of the day. My approach is to give it a few hours, think of something else, and see if it goes away. In most cases, that pain is replaced by a new one or, preferably, I proceed through the rest of the day pretty much pain-free. For a while there, I’d take ibuprofen at the first sign, but with new little aches arriving daily like Amazon packages at a neighbor’s doorstop, I’ve given up on the NSAIDS and adopted an approach of benign neglect. Don’t think about it and it will probably go away.

Recently, there’s been a pain that doesn’t go away as easily, a lower-back thing that attends most mornings and is a nagging footnote to my other pain of the day. The ache is likely the result of my adjusting my gait to compensate for my larger left leg, which is swollen as the result of cancer treatment. Thirteen years of that have forced my lower back muscles to twist themselves into pretzels. Chiropractic adjustments help a lot, and so does yoga. If I stretch in the morning and evening, my back keeps quiet the next day. Cycling helps, too, thank goodness.

I could list all the daily pains, but if you’re my age or older, you already have the list. Some of the strangest recent ones involve the big toe, elbow, palm, knee, hip, calf, neck, hair (yes), forehead – each one was relatively minor, fleeting and never returned. Does someone have a voodoo doll named for me?

But that earlobe. It hurt to touch it. I ignored it as long as I could, then went to the mirror for a look. Nothing looked sick. I concluded I’d slept on it wrong.

By last evening my earlobe was back to normal, and the next pain of the day was waiting its turn.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.