Old Age is the One Disease You Don't Look Forward To Being Cured Of

This morning I was conversing with an unusually enlightened 25-year-old massage therapist about the idea of mindful living. "When I go to the gym, I see the elderly women coming out of their aqua aerobics class," she said. "I look at their bodies while they are changing and I think, 'That's coming.'"

It's true. We are human beings. We are born, we grow up, we have fun (hopefully much of the time), we grow old (again, hopefully) and then we die. Aging is a natural process.

It's a complicated issue for people in the United States, and I didn't realize how complicated until I started studying Chinese medicine and working with infertility patients.

When I was a girl growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was told that I could have it all - a career, a family, a fantastic education and extracurricular activities. I could bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. All because I was a woman. I was taught to use birth control until I was "ready" to start a family. No one ever gave me a deadline.

I know I'm not the only woman in my age group who's put off getting married and having a family in the interest of career, self discovery, and artistic and worldly exploration. How can I be so certain? Because of ads like this.

Another tip-off were the infertility patients I would see in the clinic. Women who, approaching the age of 40, decide it's time to start a family and go off birth control pills. They come to the clinic because they aren't getting their periods, or they can't stop bleeding, or they've tried for a year or more and can't conceive.

It's not their fault. No one told them there was a time limit. No one explained to them how taking the birth control pill for twenty years straight would affect their endocrine system. That's because no one knew. Typically clinical trials for drugs last anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months. The long term affects of taking medications aren't discovered until a significant portion of the population takes that medication for a long period of time.

For example, a recent study shows that Botox Cosmetic injected into the muscles of your face can possibly travel to your brain stem. The effects of this transmission are not yet known, nor are the long term affects of using Botox to smooth wrinkles.

Getting old is uncomfortable. It connotes death, the end of the line, the weakening of the physical body. That brings up many issues, none of them comfortable. But is the answer injecting poison into your face for a few more months of smooth skin? Is the answer buying a Ferrari with custom rims?

Maybe the answer is accepting yourself for who and what you are, becoming comfortable with the good and changing the bad. Accepting responsibility for the choices that you've made and actively pursuing what you currently want.

Enough on this soapbox. I need a cup of coffee.