FIT TO LIVE

Forget what I said a couple of entries ago about my thumb being on the mend.  I was misled by the visual.  However, after a visit to the doctor yesterday, two courses of antibiotics and a Tetanus shot, I'm good.

Damn dog.

Some lessons take longer to learn and some realities are harder to fully recognize, I suppose.  I am only surprised because I am old enough to be more savvy and to have evolved well beyond this point.

 I should know better than to have labored under the constraints living with an unpredictable dog demand, entertained disingenuous people calling it friendship and believe now that by enduring exceedingly long hours punishing my body on that damned elliptical I am going to somehow preserve or restore my youth when in reality, it is going to get me in the end.  I will never again be twenty-eight or thirty, but my knees and joints will eventually wear out, if I don't exercise some restraint instead of reckless abandon.

A 'happy medium' is in order.

Yesterday I did make some strides in that department by taking myself to the doctor for my thumb, thereby recognizing I, indeed, had a problem; and by getting up early to meet my friend, Shelley, at the park for a walk.  Not only did my body appreciate the change of pace from that machine of torture upstairs, but I realized a whole different set of muscles were being engaged when walking briskly and that I was taking some slack off my knees and thighs as well as amping up those muscles in my derriere.   Who, at any age, couldn't use a tighter ass?

But the question should really be, "Why do I care?"

Being healthy is all well and good, but the rest seems only relevant and achievable when you neither care about it as much or need it at all.  Think about it.  How many hours did you spend on treadmills or ellipticals  or engaged in other toning, ab-chasing exercises when you were in your prime?  How about, NONE!

I know I didn't.

And the real irony is that at the ages and stages of life when we are naturally fit, resilient, outwardly fresh, toned and strong and can most readily and easily handle these grueling tortures in our quest for enduring physical attractiveness,  we don't need to!

 We only need to once we are at the point when the external elements of feature and form are becoming lax; where torn ligaments, sprained muscles, and damaged joints are most likely to occur without a whole lot of provocation, and when the possibility of actually achieving the restoration and rejuvenation of our former glory is.....well, impossible!

But it makes us temporarily feel better about being older when we can still run faster, jump higher and leap tall buildings in a single bound in comparison to our aging competition; not to forget the inevitable comparisons externally.  It seems only the brave and the inspired who willingly embrace gray when bottled blonde or brunette are so readily accessible;  to embrace baldness or drooping eyelids when hair transplants and brow lifts are possible or to wear those fine lines and wrinkles when botox and other procedures are available?

The sad element to our collective compulsion to hold onto our youth, aside from the obvious, freakish appearances of those who can no longer recognize the difference between a naturally youthful face from that of an inflated, pulled-back look as though your face has been frozen at the point of descent on a really, really steep roller coaster, is that by doing so, we become more imprisoned by the limitations of this world than ever before.

There is something incredibly and profoundly liberating when you reach mid-life and make the choice to fully BE and to accept who you are and at what stage you are without reserve and with excitement.  At no other point in life do we really have it all quite as generously as we do in our middle years.

When we are very young, we are busy growing up.  When we are moderately young, we are busy raising families or careers.  When we are elderly, we are busy processing and reflecting and preparing to bring things to a close.

But right now, smack dab in the middle, we are privileged to indulge both ends of the spectrum.  Generally, our kids, if we have any, are at ages of self-sufficiency to a large degree, we still have a lot of energy and stamina, our minds are sharp and our experience, long.  These are all good things, and if recognized and heeded, can lead to a wisdom and a freedom so profound we'll never want to look back.

If you put any faith at all into the idea that there is a deliberate design in and a much larger purpose for the process of aging, you have to conclude that the only logical explanation would be to attempt to inform us of the power inherent in letting go of the ways of this earth and to organically but forcefully instruct us to begin putting the energies and accumulated wisdom we've gathered from our earthly tenure into the ways of the spirit and all the transcendency that exists from the point of heart and beyond.

The shift of emphasis would go from our forms to forgiveness, our abs to absolution, our Body Mass Index to Being More Illuminated; and the muscle we would exercise the most would be our heart.  At that point I think we'd be of much more value and service to our younger counterparts and the entire planet as compassionate mentors for them rather than competitive agents against them.  We are designed to lose at the latter anyway.


Obviously, I'm not advocating sloth.  I think it is important to remain active and conscious of how we walk through the world making sure to do so with grace and compassion as well as in the best possible health.  However, whatever beauty exists within the qualities of grace and compassion has far and away a more enduring power to beguile and transform than any toned bicep or lifted jowl.

That being said, I don't plan on foregoing my ongoing exercise routine.  As I have alluded to before,  my time on that damned elliptical is as much a time to plumb the depths of my soul and my imagination as it is to push to the limits my ripened bones; and my personal issue has to do with staying focused enough on what I am doing so as not to remain in a state of heightened movement too long and to the point of injury.  I daydream to a nearly unfathomable degree.

But I've tried not to let the declivitous effects of time on my face and form undermine my confidence and overwhelm my thoughts.  Some days it is definitely harder than on others.  And there is always this lame and underlying concern that those who knew me before the ravages of time had made their mark, will be disappointed in the mature version and will not give me the chance to restore my faded image with the internal and heart-funded version I've been working so diligently these fifty-four years to cultivate and feature. That they will just say, "God!  What happened to her?  She didn't hold up very well!" and stop there.

I guess it is my hyper-awareness of what is important and impressive to most people that causes me to react to the restrictive conditioning, which puts more emphasis on the least important aspect of ourselves; how we appear.   I don't want to care, but I do.  I care about how I am perceived, and I make internal calls based on the initial appearance of others.

Happily, I've gotten to the point where I quickly shut those perceptions down and immediately open up other channels when meeting someone for the first time or assessing someone I've known.  But it took a long time to get there.

Sometimes I wish we were all just floating bubbles or formless wisps taking each other in by essence alone.  It would eliminate so many of our misguided impressions and unfounded prejudices and expedite our journey towards enlightenment and our return to embracing love alone.

And the best thing would be that I could finally get rid of that damned elliptical.