Time

When I was younger I took a dance class for 17 years.  Once in college, I gave up the dream of being a dancer and focused on going to bars and honing my drinking skills.  I became quite successful at it and am still an overachiever in that area of my life.  I'm a wee bit older now and a friend of mine that has a dance studio has, what I affectionately call, the "old lady class".  This class is basically for older women who have danced in their past who would like to do it again but not in a serious sort of way.  It's fun and I'm hoping it will keep the alzheimer's away by working a part of brain that never gets any exercise.  Now, being older and taking a class like this can take it's toll on the body and the brain.  Out of the two, last week it decided to pick on my body. 

To look at me you can definately NOT tell that I go to the gym fairly regularly but I do.  And I do all the things that you're supposed to do when you workout.  I start slow to warm up the muscles, get in at least a good 40 minutes of cardio, then stretch really well while the muscles are still warm so that I'll be able to sit on the potty the next day and to keep me limber so as I age I don't fall down and break a hip.  In dance class we stretch really well too before we start doing things that my body is not used to doing anymore.  One thing my body is used to doing is walking.  I do it everyday so you can imagine my surprise when I was just walking across the floor with a little bounce in my step and all of a sudden it felt like my calf muscle snapped in two.  That may be a bit of an exaggeration but I've never had anything like that happen to me before so I was a little scared.  One thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that I don't heal the way I used to and when you feel a snap in your leg you have to wonder, "Geez, how long is it going to take me to bounce back from this latest poor decision?"  It's gotten to where when I get up in the morning, there are aches and pains that are getting increasingly worse with age.  I asked my friend the other day if she got stiff when she sat in one position too long and was relieved when she said yes because as we all know, misery loves company.  All of the aches and pains, slow healing and the constant appearance of sagging skin makes me realize that time is quickly slipping away.

Two of my best friends have girls that are graduating this year.  The girls' names are Abby and Katy.  I can remember when each of them were born.  Abby had a blonde mohawk (not by choice but at least Dannielle had a place to stick the ginormous bows she always put in her girls' hair) and Katy was a chunky monkey with no hair and Debra used tape to stick the bows in her hair.  Both of these girls have grown into two of the sweetest and most beautiful girls that I have the privilege of knowing.  One of the biggest things that I think about when I see them is how fast time has gone by.  As written above, my constant aches and pains remind me everyday that I'm getting older and not so much in a good way, but these girls, along with the constantly growing kids of all my friends, are a positive reminder that time does indeed march on.  I have had the opportunity to watch so many of my friends children go through ups and downs in their young lives.  I'm hoping that I'll be there to watch the rest of them and hopefully my own children one day.  And even though I say I feel 27 in my mind, I know that as they get older I do too, and eventually we are going to all run out of time.

My friend Charlotte once said to me, "You blink your eyes and your kids are grown!".  When I told my dad that he said, "Hell, you blink your eyes and your life is mostly gone.  You're 20 then BAM you're 60."  I can believe it.  It hurts my voicebox to say that I'm 37, especially when I look at all that I still have left to do during my brief stint on this Earth.  I guess what I'm trying to get across in this particular rambling is this... if you want to take the "old lady class"; don't worry about the pulled muscle or what people think, if you want to go on a vacation, go; if you wanna have a kid, go get knocked up (even though, from personal experience, it's not as easy as one might think); if you want that piece of red velvet cake with the cheese cake on top at P.J.'s, eat it (believe me, it's good).  Do all the things that you want to do.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't pay your bills and let all your responsibilites go, but do the things that you can logically do in this lifetime.  We only get to go around once and don't you want to be old, lying in your bed thinking about all the fun things you did in life as you slowly drift into the world beyond?