Aging

"The afternoon knows 

what the morning never suspected."

Robert Frost

 

As I walk today, rain delicately splattering me the entire five to six miles, I think mostly of aging.  Perhaps because of yesterday's ride.  Perhaps because most of the miles I now must walk were once my week-end nine mile run course.  Perhaps because I received news this morning that a health problem I suspected I might have was something else entirely.  But for whatever reason, I think of aging along with other things.

 

Yesterday was an exceptionally warm day for early February, warm and breezy.  It was the kind of day that reminds you of how spring will feel when it finally arrives.  I rush into her open arms for an embrace, her warm breath caressing my cheek,  making me happy to be alive, to see the greening, the birthing.  But not yet.  Yesterday was just a reminder of what will come despite the fact that some of my daffodil leaves are beginning to nudge the earth aside, tips of green emerging, yearning for spring and her embrace.  "Not yet," I counsel them.  "Not yet."  "Soon," they answer.  "Just hold on. She will arrive soon. And we will dance with the wind in our yellow gowns."

 

Winter is not yet ready to relinquish her grasp.  Snow and ice, possible power outages, are predicted.  And so despite being a tad tired from yesterday's almost 60 miles, I walk.  It is not so warm as yesterday, but it is a heck of a lot warmer than what is to come.

 

Yesterday  Jon agreed to ride with me and agreed to a course that babies my injured foot which is almost healed but still plagues me if I overdo.  So there will be hills, including the climb out of Madison, but no really steep hills or demanding hills.  Merely climbs. And we will be slow.

 

I am so slow anymore and I don't know whether to attribute it to a lack of fitness or age or a combination of the two.  I don't know how much is mental (as my friend, Lynn Roberts told me, as you get older it is harder to be mean to yourself), and how much is physical.  It bothers me, this slowness, more than I thought it would, but I try to remind myself to be happy that I am healthy enough to swing my leg over a bicycle and ride 60 miles.  I try to remind myself that I am truly blessed having little pain.  When I try to talk to others about it, they  normally try to assure me that I am strong, but I don't FEEL strong very often anymore.  And I do miss it.  I worry that the ride will not be enjoyable for Jon at this slow pace, but it is the best I can manage right now.

 

I think about the saying that age brings wisdom, but I don't feel very wise.    I suppose I thought I would be smarter about things by now.  Instead I find myself using the wrong words, having to pause to grasp the right word, using the wrong spelling or the wrong punctuation.  I have heard them described by others as "brain farts," so I know I am not alone, but I don't like it.  It is scary sometimes. And I don't feel wise.  Maybe because there is no solution to aging.  When you stop, you die.  Maybe wisdom is accepting that life is a gift, no matter your age, so long as you are not in pain and can still do most, if not all, of the things you once did. And so I will try to send my mind in that direction.  And I suspect there will be more things that the afternoon shows me that I never suspected.  Hopefully I will learn my lessons gracefully and gratefully for all I have been given.