Someone is trotting down the stairs behind me. Footsteps rapidly grow louder and gain momentum until the owner sweeps past the landing and encounters me.
“Oh” a young man pops out earbuds and looks at my feet “Can I help you?”
“I’m just slow” I reassure him “I have a sore knee”
He looks concerned but never looks me in the eye. “Really, go ahead” I touch his arm which brings his eyes to mine. I give him my best smile ever.
“Okay” he pushes his ear buds back in. The first few steps away he hesitates, then he dances away. I spend the next ten minutes navigating a one minute stairway.
I forgot I can’t do stairs for a while yet. I hurt my knee several weeks ago and it doesn’t like to bend anymore.
It makes me feel very old to be inflexible, it always did. But now injuries take a long time to heal.
Of course this current injury is my doing. It comes from a common fault of getting older. Your brain and your body do not agree on your age. The brain says I’m 19! Whoopee! The body says nothing at first, but shows you your real age very shortly after.
When I was young the mind ruled. My body followed. I could bounce back from most of my punishments in record time. If I wanted to lose weight it only took several trips to the gym, or a good run.
Now the body rules and the mind, well, is just stupid about this change in power and wisdom of the body. It does not understand age – what is age?
We wage war with this. We try to defeat age. But age is not a phase you are going through or a disease that you get better from with the right exercise and diet. There is no battle to fight. Age is a process. It is Mother Nature.
Science and consumerism give us promises of renewed youth; perfect eyesight, dancing until dawn, or sex all weekend, with chemicals and surgery. We come from the Star Trek generation where lasers can fix anything or, simply make you vanish.
Not to say some of this isn’t useful. But once you have your twentieth birthday you cannot go back. Ever. In any way.
Thank God.
I would not ever want to go back to those emotional years. Things are SO much better emotionally. I will probably blab about that later.
It is good of course to be physically fit and as healthy as you can be. You cannot let yourself go to seed at any age, this just adds problems and takes away the ability to have a good quality of life (and later on, you will pay). But it is going to take a lot more effort after 50. You’re gonna be tired.
I still have a lot to learn, but I do get this. Slow – exercises must be done slowly and carefully until I am back in shape. Consistency – No more run once in a while. Exercise has to be daily to maintain a certain level.
For now, I try to find elevators.