Time Flies

Just like the pest that circles your head while hiking in the mountains, age circles around your eyes, your waist, your joints and those synapses in your brain. I never thought about getting older but somehow it happened. I thought I would be a runner into my 80s until an autoimmune disease decided to destroy the joints in my feet leaving me less than mobile. I look around and find many of my friends in the same shape and we were the active ones. The ones who worked out regularly, ate healthy, employed stress management techniques - it really doesn't seem to matter, time flies and pesty bugs get the better of our bodies. I'm still recreating my here and now based on the fact that I can't go to the gym five days a week. That was what I did. I'm not sure what to do now and am still figuring out how much movement I can endure before the pain kicks me in the butt. I have a degree in PE and a master's in Exercise Physiology so my life has been based on movement, active, running, biking, hiking, skiing, kinds of movement. Just trying to get my feet into my snowboard boots can leave me grimacing and limping and up until last winter I endured the pain because I couldn't not go but his last winter, I never got near the slopes. It scares me to know that, to know my life is changing and out of my control. I know my sisters are sitting back and laughing because they never exercised a day in their lives and both are enjoying relatively good health while I limp and sometimes consider crawling upstairs.

Echoing in my head is a refrain I often repeated to my child as she grew up "life is not fair" boy that's an understatement. It's just not. My friend who has ovarian cancer has been an organic vegetarian all her life and regular exerciser - so much for living a clean life and having it pay off. Sometimes life is just a crap shoot and you just deal with whatever comes your way.

So enough of the pity party. There has been one bright spot in the changes age has brought. It is that I have learned how to sit still and not feel guilty. I do sudoku in the evenings to relax and feel no pangs because I my saucony's lie dormant in the closet. I still lace them up to walk to the mail box. It's strange this time of transition, I both fear and look forward to it.

How has age affected you? Did you expect it? Are you ever angry about it? Has it come with unseen blessings? I would love to hear your stories.

Journeys

We all take many journeys in life - some good, some bad but almost all are educational. We learn about our selves through the events that take place and how we handle them. Many times I have wished I would have handled things better but even that was a step forward as I became aware. A friend of mine has started on a frightening journey. One against a silent killer - ovarian cancer. She is brave and courageous and I admire her spirit. Another friend is nursing an aging father whose health is precarious and requires daily assistance. Still others face the uncertainty of retirement. My younger friends face the challenge of growing up in the age of instant media. Gone are the days of blissful ignorance and innocence. They know too much too soon. When faced with difficult journeys, I always recommend that my friends journal. There is something therapeutic about getting it down on paper and out of our internal organs. I have journaled for years and some of it landed in my first novel, Threads - the story of a woman's journey to her true self. I chose only those journeys that were universal, ones that most of us travel - the pains of an awkward childhood, the metamorphosis into adulthood, loss, love, divorce and the growth of the soul.

I would love to hear from readers about their sweetest and toughest journeys. How did your cope? Did you journal and did it help? Who helped you most on your journey? What did you learn?

All journeys lead somewhere - where are you now and how did you get there? The road behind is as important as the road ahead.