I am officially old now, I guess

I fell last night. I was working with the wife out on the lawn next to the driveway (don't ask). I took a step and lost my balance. I did that running thing you do when you know you're going down but your body's still trying to prevent it, and went down onto the driveway. I caught myself with my hands, but wasn't able to stop my face from bouncing off the concrete.

For a moment, I was afraid that I had broken my left cheekbone, and maybe gave myself a concussion. After a few minutes, though, my face stopped hurting. However, the balls of my hands — the parts of the palms right under the thumbs — kept hurting. I had trouble picking anything up or putting any weight on my hands.

The wife gave me a spritz of lidocaine on my palms and a couple ice packs, one for each hand. It's the next day, and my hands still hurt — not like they're broken hurt, just that they're badly bruised or sprained level of hurt.

The past year or two has been bad for me, compared to what came before. Osteoarthritis in my hands causing pain and problems. The thing with my hips that kept me from walking without pain for months — I'm still only about 90 percent over that, and there's still enough pain that walking or even just standing is hard. Now this.

I'm fortunate compared to a lot of people. The pain hasn't been permanently debilitating, and my injuries such as they were were minor. It's not like I had any sort of major bone break or severe injury. So, I'm grateful for that. But it still hurts, and it's still building up.

Aging is not for the weak.