conversation

Photo Credit: Mayo Clinic
But I added the thought bubble

I looked at my reflection tonight as I washed the dishes and I saw my mom.  The problem is, I look like my mom, but I don’t have her personality.  I can’t be there for myself like she is for me.  My reflection was false advertising.  

It took me about one minute of missing her before I snapped into a vain response of “I’m not that old, am I??”

This is just one way that aging is unpredictable.

Actually, I don’t mind aging at all, I kind of like it and I have Mario.  There are some things I miss about being young – like those “pig-out” days where I ate grilled cheese sandwiches and cookies all day like I was getting ready to run a marathon.  I can’t do those days anymore.  Those days (if I ever try them) suspend the functions of my liver and kidneys and I end up cursing grilled cheese sandwiches like they were a shameful binge that I just took part in.  I rarely find myself in that predicament these days.

Tonight was a night where I decided to make chicken strips (dipped in egg and fried with bread crumbs) and French fries.... both of which (for anyone who knows me) used to be staples in my diet.  I just don’t eat them together anymore because I go around complaining the next day that I can’t sit properly or that my weight went up three kg’s in one day.  

So tonight I threw caution into the wind and poured a great deal of sunflower oil into a pan and got ready to fry. What the hell... I haven’t had fried food in (what...?) a week.

Everything came out stunning perfect and the best news about being almost 50 is that my cooking is great every single time.  I couldn’t finish either the French fries or the chicken strips because they (wait for it...) disagreed with me.  I started to feel my liver talking to me.  “You’re not serious!” it said from  the right upper-quadrant of my abdominal cavity.  “You want me to process that?”

“Give me a flippin break, liver,” I answered.  “Shut up while I’m pigging out.”

I am not afraid to talk to my second largest organ because it is supposed to obey me, right?  I finally gave up eating when I started feeling  unsatisfied and bloated.  I had eaten about 15 french fries and three chicken strips.  I’m becoming a lightweight.

The truth of the matter is that aging is not for the faint of heart.  I work out every day and my poor body has started to demand more rest, more health, more manners from me.  I have to listen to it because I want to be healthy for as long as I can be, which basically I am.

I miss my mom.  Tonight as I finished washing the dishes I cried for her.  Of course my liver told me I was crying because I ate fried food and I wasn't getting my proper intake of valuable nutrients.  

Shut up, liver.  

Shut up while I’m crying.

The human liver has over 50 functions - check it out here to see just a few of them.