Brain OK Car Old

 Being as old as I am, it's hard to explain to others not as ancient, why you are having pain. I tell them it's like riding around in a body that is a very old car. It has its moods and breakdowns here and there where you can't see them under the hood. Even though you are the best driver in the world, you try to tolerate your old "car" and deal with its various little mean surprises. Your knee or ankle aches. Your back let's you know of its  presence. Most of these situations do not require a doctor, therefore, you try to avoid pills and perhaps dig out your favorite herbal patches to stick on or go find the heating pad. If all that fails, you take the over the counter meds which always work but engender guilt. Society at large frowns on the use of pills. There could be around, unfortunately for you, other folk a few years younger than you, whose body cars aren't as old as yours, and they tell you the myth about using it or losing it. When this occurs and you are in your nineties you are tempted to remind them of what's ahead for them also, and that using it too much is what got you here in the first place. But you don't. No one likes an honest, cranky old person and you might need their help soon, so you button your lip as the saying goes. It's safer to smile sweetly and grit your teeth, if you have any. Pain is part of aging and if you are lucky, your complaint, which everyone of "an age" has in some form or another. Pain is an annoyance that you keep to yourself, but if you have a quiver or a tic or a limb that doesn't work and it shows, you are apt to hear lots of advice on what to do about it. Advanced age, therefore, requires patience. I prefer that before giving advice or grabbing my arm they ask first if it's okay. While the body car I ride around in is rather out of date, my brain is just as good as theirs today fortunately. I am not an invalid. But silence in an oldie, is required and the old lady smile must be planted on in order to keep the peace. But someone ought to write a manual for old age, one written by someone in it, not someone who studies it. They're not living in my old car.