"Worn"

My first thought for “worn” is that I’m worn out.  What happened to those days when I could stay up 3 nights in a row doing homework?  What about those days when I partied through the night and watched the sunrise?

I went to dinner with my coworkers, and they joked about how I am the “young one” in the office.  That’s one of the perks of my job; it makes me feel there’s still a lot more in my life to accomplish.  And even though I am the young one, I can see that my coworkers who are mostly in their 60s and even 70s have a lot more life in them too, especially when you compare them to some of our volunteers and donors.

Aside from bad genes, I think most of us decide when we’re old and start acting like it.  When I was miserably married in my 30s, I felt old and fat and thought that 60 more years of this kind of misery was more than I could bear.  Once the divorce was signed, I realized my body would start cooperating with me again if I just got out and had some fun.  I started dancing every weekend.  I felt better in my 40s than I did in my 30s.

Looking back on my life, I see that it’s been a journey of peaks and valleys.  When I’m happy, I’m fit.  When I’m depressed, I’m not.  Not being fit can lead to bad choices and too many cookies and more reasons to be depressed.

When my brother moved in recently, he came with a lot of exercise equipment.  Some of it’s in the living room, and he’s prone to jumping up during tv commercials to do pushups.  It’s kind of impressive, but I’ve never done a pushup in my life, and I don’t really anticipate a time when I would enjoy doing them.  He’s gotten me to exercise with my iron door stop instead.  5 repetitions of this, then that, then these optional movements, and then I can ignore fitness again and eat M&Ms while I read my book in peace.  Bro is actually a good fitness instructor because he isn’t too pushy about it – though he did mention running an 8 minute mile.  I think 8 minute miles are in the same impossible category as pushups.  I’ll stick with my cast iron door stop.

The point is, we’re only limited by our own thoughts.  If you want to be fit, you can be.  You can start at whatever point you’re at because “fitness” is a vague term.  You can be more fit than you are at the moment by taking the steps instead of the elevator or picking up something heavy a few times just cuz.  It isn’t necessary to eat the whole package of cookies at one sitting.  (maybe?)  After a while, we quit feeling as worn out.

I don’t want to imply that people don’t have real physical issues to get around.  People get sick, and all this stuff is harder when we’re sick.  It’s just a reminder that we can put some effort into feeling better with a little positive action.  Even 5 repetitions of something simple can help.

Our brains work the same way.  “Use it or lose it” has some truth to it, but it isn’t a finite truth.  If you want to be more creative, or smarter, or more charming, or whatever, work on it a bit and it gets easier.

At least I’m working with this theory until I feel like dancing again J