When I was in my late 30s, I got really wasted at my friend's house. I am pretty sure it was the most wasted I have ever been, thanks for asking. In the course of being wasted, I did a backflip off someone's bed and my knee broke a vase and the vase broke my knee. Actually, luckily, it did not so much break my knee as create a neat three-inch gash that I was—have I mentioned?—too wasted to really feel.

We were too drunk to go anywhere so my friend splinted it with an olive tray. In the morning, I went to the emergency room and a doctor who did not hide his disdain for the way that I had sustained my injury—still too wasted to lie!—sewed it up. As I walked out of the hospital, I remembered I was supposed to be playing soccer that day. I texted to my friend: "No soccer today, but I will probably be back in a few weeks."

How wrong I was. I was not back in a few weeks. I was back in about three months, because my knee healed at a snail's pace, and I remember thinking, "What is wrong that this stupid cut—a big cut, granted—is taking so long to heal?" And what I realized in the weeks that followed was that there was nothing wrong with this particular cut, and nothing wrong with me, per se. I was just entering that phase of life when you a) take forever to heal or b) don't really ever actually heal.

My knee did heal. But I now understood that this was a taste of things to come; that the body was slowing down, and faster than one might anticipate. And come these things did. At around 40, my fingers started to hurt. I went to a doctor. "Oh yeah," he said. "Your fingers hurt." I nodded. "You're probably starting to get arthritis."

"Arthritis? I have arthritis?" I pictured my grandmother's gnarled hands, with their brown and curiously blue dots, struggling with the Anacin bottle. The doctor explained that arthritis was simply a broad term for swelling of the joints, and that it just started to happen in middle age and it could get very bad and it could be mild.

They tell you about mortgages and taxes and divorce, but no one ever tells you what an intense experience it is to go to a doctor who tells you have a problem that won't go away—that is now just part of you, sorry!

I told a friend of my parents who is in his late 60s that I had arthritis and he looked at me and said very seriously, "The best thing you can do about getting old is just try to ignore it. Pretend it's not happening."

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  I'm not the woman I used to be, as I now come with special sound effects

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  Consider yourself warned ... and prepared

I took his advice, or tried to. Who wouldn't want to take magical advice like that? I started going to yoga a lot, and the pain in my fingers actually went away. I began to think that if I could just go to yoga enough, I could simply stay ahead of old age. I actually remember thinking that each day couldn't age you as much as a yoga class de-aged you. It seemed perfectly logical that I could some how win this fight.

And while I was 42, 43, I thought I kind of was winning. What I didn't know was that—well, it was just a matter of time.

And then one of my knees started to hurt—not the one I cut, totally unrelated to anything having to do with being drunk or even overuse—just because when you are 44, well, sometimes one of your knees starts to hurt. A doctor told me I could get surgery, which may or may not work, or I could just be careful, or maybe it would just get better.

Thank God I'd already had the arthritis visit (dis)appointment to prepare me for this: Hello, you're slowly dying, and your body is a reflection of that. That will be a $40 co-pay.

My knee did get better, and then it got worse. Mostly, my left knee has a small but persistent pain on the outside of it. And the fact that it is not that bad reminds me that I can still do yoga and walk and ride a bike, and that is good, and the fact that it is not perfect reminds me that I probably shouldn't go skiing or play soccer.

It is really sad to me that I can't do those things. I feel like I should just try, sometimes, that I should just push through it. The problem is that the whole "just push through it" philosophy is great for things like trying to finish a project, or quitting Twitter, or not giving up on making the perfect croissant even though your first and second and even eighth batch sucked. But your knee is probably not going to respond to your can-do attitude. Your mind might be 30, but your knee is 45.

It is hard to explain to people who are younger that you just can't do something. (No, I am not going skiing. Not now. Not ever.) That something is probably just over for you, and that, yes, bone broth is very nourishing, but it probably won't replace all the cartilage in your knee. I am taking collagen tablets now—hope springs eternal—but mostly I am resigned to the way things are. And they really aren't that bad.

When my parents' friend told me to ignore getting older, I was young enough to think that this was actually possible, and that it might somehow actually work in some magical way. I realize that what he meant now is—and it's both sad and funny how anti-climactic this is—ignore it as much as you can. Meaning, you can't ignore that you can't go skiing and you can't ignore that you can't play soccer, but you can ignore how you feel about it. You really can.

And refusing to complain. Really, the way I ignore it is just by being really glad that my knee works as well as it does. Whenever anyone says, "Aren't you sad you can't ski?" I just say, "Not really." Because why should I say yes? What purpose would it serve? Finally, I remind myself however much my knee bothers me now is going to be a picnic to how much it bothers me in 20 years. So since I didn't bother to enjoy its perfection 20 years ago, I should enjoy its relative functionality now.

Also, my left shoulder is starting to bother me enough that I'll bet pretty soon I will forget all about my knee. One bright spot: I can report that if I go to yoga a lot, my fingers do not hurt, and if I do not go, they hurt. How I relish that small sliver of control

http://www.purpleclover.com/health/4059-when-you-have-problem-that-wont-go-away/?icid=pclver|swipehp