I miss being a kid sometimes. My body just can’t do the things it used to be able to do without a great deal of complaining these days. How annoying! Take, for example, our recent trip to a local ski hill. As far as I can remember I’ve never actually been to this particular ski hill, I suppose mostly due to the fact that my parents regularly treated my brother and me to skiing in the mountains when we weren’t taking lessons at the hill near our school. I didn’t realize how privileged we were until I got older and realized that not everybody had such experiences. Turns out I was spoiled… darn whipper snappers, didn’t know how good we had it!
Anyways, since I’d never been to this hill I didn’t realize they had such a primitive hill-climbing device as a tow rope for one part of the hill. I hadn’t used one of those since I learned to ski, and truth be told I was actually kind of excited to relive my childhood! It didn’t occur to me to question my ability to use it. However, due to years of being carried up the ski slopes (thank goodness for chair lifts) I overestimated my abilities, or so the thought occurred to me that night at 4am when I had to take painkillers to numb my sore arm into submission so that I could hopefully catch some shuteye. Woe was me.
This darn body of mine is weak! Weak, I say! For shame!
I blame my husband, for once I got married I no longer had to perform the heavy lifting, or the “blue jobs” as I fondly refer to them. The other evening when I had a hard time opening a new jar of pickles, I didn’t fret. I didn’t curse and spend 5 minutes at it, holding it under some hot water and burning my hand trying to work it free. Heck no! I summoned my loving hubby, wherein I was able to enjoy a pickle instantaneously. I like to think he enjoys being needed in this way. I also like instant pickles.
Nevertheless, this dependency upon his lovely, strong and altogether Popeye-esque arms means that, sadly, I’ve let mine go to seed. I suppose that’s not his fault, technically, but let’s not split hairs here.
I’m no Olive Oil though… when moving people (from house to house, not literally moving people) I jump right in and I can hold my own. I usually do well with strength stuff in exercise classes too, or so I think anyways (and all that counts is what I think). I never would have guessed that a tow rope could wreak such havoc on my poor arms. But when I was a kid all I had to lug up the hill was 50-70 lbs. I weigh a little more than that now.
My friend joined me the other day in lamenting the fact that we’re just not kids anymore and we can’t do things as easily as we used to do; for her it was skipping. I liked skipping a lot too. I sometimes still skip randomly, but certainly not with the vigor of an 8-year-old. Heck, I was with my niece a couple months ago showing her how to use a hopscotch pattern someone had drawn on the ground, and after just a few minutes of hopping around I was totally winded. Ah, how I long for a boundless youthful energy fueled by candy and peanut butter where skipping and hop scotching and tow roping was rampant. I eat healthier now than I ever did when I was young and yet I have less energy, just because I’m so old. I guess growing older literally sucks the life out of us in the process. Isn’t that just depressing…
So where’s the positive? Well, for starters it’s Christmas Eve, which means the next few days are going to be filled with food, family, and festivity (the 3 F’s)! Then a few days after that we’ll be headed to the mountains for a week-long ski trip with a bunch of awesome friends. The best part? The only tow rope is where it belongs: on the bunny hill.
S
Life Loofah 