…comes in many different forms. Oh, you first hear about needing glasses in your 50’s, and it starts to get harder to lose weight, the hearing starts to pale, and you develop little aches and pains and as the years go by they get a little more intense, then there is the memory that is there but you have to dig a little deeper to find it. However, my age smacked me in the face this week when I tried to sew a button on. First of all I wear a lot of blouses with a lot of buttons, and I can say I haven’t sewn on a button in years. However I just recently lost a button on one blouse and now another blouse needed one. ( I am so surprised and now grateful that buttons don’t drop off like they use to.) Grateful because sewing on my button became a real ordeal. In my younger years I would have gotten a needle and thread and sewn on the button one, two, three, and be on my way. Age made a difference. First I couldn’t remember where I had my little sewing kit, or did I really still have one. I did find a baggie with all sorts of sewing items, actually two baggies with almost identical items. There was a measuring tape that brought back memories of when I measured my small waist…there was some elastic, there was leather shoelaces, and lots of safety pins and regular pins, all sorts of colored thread, some unraveled and entangled with the shoelaces, some still wound tightly on its’ spool. Then there was this:

What is it? I dug deep in my memory and realized it was a seam ripper. Of course in several decades I haven’t needed it as my body has unfortunately been a built in seam ripper.

I needed white thread which happened to be all tangled up taking on the looks of a cat’s hair ball. Got that squared away and now I need a needle. I found a nifty needle holder that had all sorts and sizes of needles all in their separate dividers. Only problem was the needle holder had opened up and all the needles were in the bottom of the baggie. I gingerly picked out the largest needle with the biggest hole to put the thread through. I find the gadget that helps me thread the needle and still have a hard time doing it. Can’t tell you how many times my thread passed right by that big hole. Finally I am ready to sew and the needle won’t penetrate the blouse material. I fiddled around for awhile before I realized I had threaded a darning needle. Would have worked great if my blouse had been wool. Back to the drawing board. Get all set with my needle and thread and can’t find the button. It was quite small, but besides that when I placed it down on the granite the back of the button was the exact color of the granite. I find it and am all ready to complete my task. There were several more fumbles with the button and that is when I realized my fingers had lost some dexterity. Also I lost some of my button sewing skills as I sewed the button so tight I can hardly button my blouse. If the button had not been so small and been the size of a quarter and I could have threaded my darning needle and used that I might not have been so sadly aware that age does show up in many different ways. I wanted to cry but then thought I could get rid of all my buttons and sew on Velcro, or perhaps zippers. That I’m sure I could do.