Monday, November 5, 2007

A rolled ankle here, a rolled ankle there...

Last night I was chasing Matthew around while he held on tight to one of the dog's balls (get yer mind out of the gutter plus my dogs are rendered incompetent in that area... also, it is likely I ought to get my mind out of the gutter since I immediately thought that you might be thinking of something else when it comes to balls...) It is a glow in the dark ball though when would we ever consider turning the lights out and throwing a ball for our dogs to run and get is beyond me, it is what it is...

Matthew said he was the fox and I was supposed to chase him. He and I both need to burn some energy so we ran around shrieking at the top of our lungs from one end of the house to the other for a while. It was fun! That is until I twisted my ankle again. What I mean to say and can hardly believe I am admitting this - I fell to the ground screaming and writhing in pain, gripping Kevin's arm so tight he yelled 'ouch stop that' at me.

I may or may not have mentioned that a few months back I was dragging a large load of laundry down the stairs and my ankle just gave out. No reason, I did not misstep or have so much of load of laundry that I could not handle the stairs, my ankle just stopped holding me up. I like to think this has something to do with past transgressions to my body like running too much or plyometrics from swimming or gymnastics, ballet and horseback riding as a kid.

Likely it is just that I am slightly heavier than I once was AND I hardly work out (or take care of myself) like I used to. The ankle hurts today, you know sore like a turned ankle should be. Mostly my pride is feeling the wrath of this. It goes something like this in my mind: 'you silly oaf workout more, stretch and take care of dang body. You are going to be 34 in six days NOT 24.'

It is hard this growing older stuff. Not that I am ancient but I have noticed a marked difficulty in bouncing back from stuff that used to barely phase me. I have twisted and turned ankles in the past and just kept right on going. The past few times I have turned my ankle it made me... well fall down writhing in pain...

This weakening of my body is frustrating to me and I feel I must mention this because it seems a warning to me to pay attention to my body more, to listen to what it is telling me. Not that I am just growing old (because as I previously mentioned I am not OLD) but that if I want to grow old gracefully as I have always said I want to (that is not fight aging every step of the way because boo hiss that sounds like a lot of work to me...) but embrace the aging process and understand that each year that passes means I do need to be more careful with myself because there is only one of me and there is no getting back the youthful body. That means working out or at the very least paying attention to myself more so than I have in the past.

I was mentioning to someone yesterday that there is no transition between being a 20 something free bird traveling around and enjoying being the life of the party to being a parent with a very different life. I think the same goes for aging. There is no moment (okay aside from menopause in women) in our lives where we are like 'huh, I am getting order maybe that is why my body aches more or it is harder to recover from rolling my ankle months ago..." Of course this does not mean that I will be crutching around with a walker next time you see me but mostly just that I am reminded that I need to be more gentle with myself because there is no going back to 24.

3 comments:

Tess said...

This is great. I feel the same way. I used to just skip over stuff about agin when I would read it or see it on tv, and now I find myself LISTENING.

K and J's mom said...

Being a woman who is also in her early thirties (and trying NOT to be old), I completely relate here. I have to say that one of my biggest wake up calls has been that when I drink three glasses of red wine with friends and stay up past midnight chatting about kids, husbands, and whatever else...well, lets just say it is a CRIME to feel sooo yucky the next morning. Seriously, I was worthless the entire next day. How sad is that? Was it so long ago that "going out" meant STARTING the night at 10:30 pm or so after work, drinking 'till 3am and then hitting the hot dog stand, Waffle House or Taco Bell? Not to mention doing this at least three nights per week, being a full time student and WORKING full time too? Lawdy, Lawd...we are OLD!

Christina Schmidt said...

NO KIDDING to both of you ladies!

BTW, I was also worthless the next day though I admit that I totally pretended not be so Kevin would not have a chance to say I TOLD YOU SO!!! ;)