Life is a lot like raising kids, you keep thinking the next stage is going to be easier. Ha, that light I thought was the end of the "tunnel?" I'm beginning to wonder if it's a train.
I tried to explain to my teenage looking foot doc the other day that guy's like me dutifully mount treadmills for the better part of our lives only because of a dream that dangles at the end of our sticks. For him to change the rules just when I'm about to wrap my long-suffering, grubby little fingers around that "golden years" fantasy life, well, it kinda sucks.
I knew better than to seek medical advice. Doc's love to run tests and attach bizarre names to our aches and pains. Then they tell us not to do this and this and this... all of which just happens to describe the "dream" at the ends of our sticks! It's uncanny, isn't it? Never go around turning over rocks. Let sleeping dogs sleep. Ignorance is bliss... or at the very least, an extended "hall pass."
I don't particularly like the pills that quell my aches and pains because they also numb my spirit. So I tried rereading an old "Self Help" book. The "Paperback Quack" tells me to "Live in the Now." Gee, I hope I'm around when one of those guys has a car wreck, "How's the Now treating you Now, Buster?"
So Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to wallow in my past and meddle in my future... drag out the good ole' glory days and my crystal ball... in order to muddle through a restricted Now.
Hey "Deepak," not everybody's present is all hunky-dory!
Here's the deal. Type "A" personalities are by definition "inpatient bastards." We tire of "rest" and waiting on tomorrow. Tell one of us Type "A's" that we're going to die tomorrow and we'd just as soon "get 'er done!" Lately, I see it as a blessing, disguised as a curse. One can't really live if one goes around all worried about dying. If an earlier grave is a potential "side-effect" of "living," well, fair enough. After all, "Quality trumps quantity," it says so in the Bible, or someplace. Besides, "side-effects" only pertain to "others." Hell, even Placebo Groups get side-effects.
Now that I'm getting old as scum on Walden Pond and have a few nagging hitches in my giddy-up, death doesn't frighten the living out of me anymore. When "old reliable" begins to leave a plume of blue smoke out the exhaust I'll just add another quart of oil and keep on going. That's the "blessing, disguised as a curse," to not be afraid of dying. It's as lubricating as a quart of oil, as liberating as a good poo. It makes me want to go bungie jumping and wing-suiting... maybe do a little two-step dance with my Lovely on an airy ridge line of rotten rock, not all that far from Heaven's Gate.
How convenient.
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| Bobbie tackles a vertical section on the Ridge Line route to our "backyard" 14'er, Mount Sneffels |
To see all the photos and a short video from the top of the world, please click the link below. You won't believe your screen and the "drop dead gorgeous" views of our Backyard.
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I really don't mind getting older, but dislike the names my doctor gives to my pains.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, Sneffels. Climbed that damn mtn 3 times too many, LOL
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not afraid at all of dying, it's HOW I do it that worries me...
We are now spending most of our money on dentists and doctors and we are in relatively great shape for our ages. I keep telling my wife that one of us has to die so the other can collect that life insurance and retire comfortably.
ReplyDeleteahhh...good church there in your back yard!
ReplyDeletei alway's wonder why older people were let's said talking about pain and sickness. now i know first hand why.being older an alway's thinking being active was the way to go.but the football,baseball,an surfing took its toll. i refuse to give up! pain is my friend now,it let's me know that i'm alive.old age got to be tuff tuff and mean.we all know that good die young.gary green
ReplyDeleteOMG, really like the Sneffels video. What prefect weather, shorts and tee shirt, blue skies, no snow on the trail and not much wind. Did you make that climb after the Doc told you to take it easy on your stress fracture? Stay heathy my friend.
ReplyDeleteI spend far too much time staring at the gorgeous pictures in the calendar you sent while sitting in my cubicle. There is some serious eye candy in your back yard.
ReplyDeleteThat's kinda what Rodeoin' is all about. Grabbin' that cloak wearing, scythe carryin' bastard by the collar and bouncin' his butt off the wall of the bar!
ReplyDeleteAches and pains? You mean there's folks that don't? I've ached and pained since that bronc kicked me in the hand so hard when I was 14 I did a somersault!
If I get to feeling bad about my dislocated spine, crushed neck and busted shoulder I think about the guy who had two weird looking curved spring lookin' deals for legs a couple years ago. The Olympic Committee wouldn't let him Race! They said he had too great an advantage! ??? I would have been embarrassed to be a Healthy Olympic Runner making that claim!
For some the Mountain grade is the challenge and making fat cry (That's what sweat is you know... fat crying!). For others the challenge is internal. Rather than overcoming the physical challenge it's the mental ones. I feel like the mental is the greater challenge for me, considering how little I've got to work with! :)
The end result is the same...
... we're layin' in a ditch pushin' up daisies... so we might as well ride the sucker clear to the end! ;)
Gaelyn,
ReplyDeleteand some of those names are worse than others...
Spotted Dog
Ah, you know Sneffels :))
and "How" we die is the question worth wondering. For me, I know it will be fast... one minute I'm here, talking about what a great ridge run that was... and the next, gone. That lingering for twenty years in a nursing home spooks.
Bayliner,
Per your comment I gave my wife permission to take the insurance money and have fun... even find a new "travel mate." :))
Darin,
This "church" will make a believer out of you!
Gary G,
We are paying now for all those hits and falls for sure. And you are so right, the good do die young... part of my beef with the Almighty.
John Q,
It is a hot summer here... shorts and t shirts are the rule even at 14,000 feet.
And, no, this post was a flash back to before I was sentenced to bread and water... hence "living in the past."
Kelly,
Wow, I'm glad the Calendar is "working." Some day, when you have enough degrees, maybe you will come out for some time out from the books and studies. I hope so, anyway.
CowBoy Brian,
Wow, then I got it both ways...
My internal challenges are, as I'm sure yours are, too, the toughest. I can't seem to live up to those goals... but someone has to be a half assed artist, writer and photographer. "We can't all be "President."
thanks pal.
mark