A little over ten years ago I quit drinking and started taking care of myself. The result of all of this, the process, was like being reborn in a way that’s hard for me to describe. And yet I’ll try.
All the various filters or lenses that allow one to take in the world, the five senses (six really), eventually are flushed and cleared of all the accumulated toxicity. For me it was decades worth. The results felt like going back in time to that version of myself that didn’t need a cocktail or sketchy food to deal with the world.
Maybe rebirth would be stretching things a bit. Not necessarily a new babe, or the young boy, but most definitely the teenager.
So in my middle forties I felt young again. I was moving and active and intensely determined to blow right past all of those road signs of life which were telling me, ‘Aging Rest Stop Ahead’. Not for me!
But this last year I’ve been, at times, made painfully aware that I need to pull over more often. My still sober (clear and clean) 50’s body isn’t same as the 40’s model.
I was a pretty good athlete in my younger days. I could play just about anything reasonably well. Certain things I was very good at and I suppose tennis was one of those things. About five years ago I started playing again on a regular basis. In the last year I’ve started suffering from little muscle and tendon “nicks”. Waking up to aches and pains the day after playing has somehow become normal.
Fuuuuuuuuuck!
So I’ve started stretching every morning. It feels like my last line of defense. That’s what I see it as but, I’m pretty sure, that’s not what an enlightened being would think.
Age, sickness, and death… undeniable.
