Notes on aging, part 1
At over half a century old, I suspect this post will be the first of many observations on aging.
When I was younger and heard people talking about things that happen as the body aged, I knew it would happen to me, like getting slower, taking longer to recover, losing strength, losing flexibility, and so on.
Those things weren’t so bad when it meant I could play ultimate at the elite level. I could always still play summer league. I could run marathons. Even when I couldn’t run marathons, I could still exercise regularly.
The first big thing that hit me that wasn’t just not being near my peak was my first injury that my experience told me would take a week or two to heal but took several months. That injury happened about ten years ago. I’ve gotten used to healing from any injury, even minor ones, taking a long time, mainly by taking fewer risks that might lead to injury.
What led me to write this post is the feeling despite knowing it would come of how weak my body feels, how sore it feels from minor activities that wouldn’t have registered as exercise before. I can’t run down stairs. The last time I went dancing to a club and heard a song I wanted to dance actively to, I could only dance a few minutes. I used to dance with that energy all night long.
I’m not complaining. I don’t think I’m flattering myself to say I’m getting wiser, more patient, more thoughtful, and such. I don’t feel bad. It’s just worth remarking: feeling the weakness, slowness, time to recover, lack of energy, and so on feels different, far more than I expected.
[EDIT: after writing this post and seeing the related posts WordPress automatically adds, I see titles of posts that suggest I’ve written these things before. Then I checked them and saw one was from 2013 and another from 2016. It seems I was getting old almost a decade ago!]
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