Aging

Bracing myself

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I received a fortune cookie this week. It read, “our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist.” Sometimes I feel like I have the opposite problem. I have the mind set of an iron pumping 17 year old male trapped in the body of an iron popping 41 year old woman with a sore knee. I am not the only one of my siblings to have knee problems either. My brother Mark blew out his knees and pretty much the rest of his body years ago from intense physical labor. My youngest brother already had 2 knee surgeries from being a hard core competitive volleyball player. We have been known to beat the crap out of our bodies, I wonder why I thought I could be the exception. My daughter said I may have to quit running and take up knitting. God forbid!

I bought myself a knee brace this week and ran with it yesterday for a 6 mile run. I wrapped it around my knee tight as a tourniquet. About half way through, I did feel a twinge of knee pain. What I did notice, however, was that I had a lot less pain after the run. I can imagine myself running in the future with a full body brace. I am bracing myself for that. Lol. Did I tell you that I also have a carpal tunnel brace? I need to wear it if I spend too many hours at the office or if I have a jigsaw puzzle marathon. C’mon, you live through decades of Wisconsin winters and tell me what you end up resorting to. Then my sanity level should not “puzzle” you. Just another thing I will have to brace myself for, a long winter. I am going to tell myself that it is summer as long as I can. 

I did see something interesting on the road yesterday. It was a young man walking covered head to toe in camouflage. He even carried a large camo bag. What wasn’t covered in camo was covered in tattoos. He had long dishwater blonde hair with a bit of a beard growing. He meant me no harm on his long journey. I imagined that he was discharged from the military in Texas and decided to take the long way home. It is strange how we can meet up with strangers that converge for a very brief moment on our path. Here he is in my blog, unaware. Maybe for a second I was strange to him too, bracing myself for the path I chose to tread upon. 

Class reunions

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This past weekend my dad had his 50th class reunion. My mom said that she wouldn’t attend with him unless he took his monthly shower. He decided not to. Instead, he went to the restaurant having the reunion, got a to go box, and came right back home. How strange. Hey, at least he was wearing clothes. 

It made me wonder a little about the purpose of a high school reunion. Technically, most people go to high school 4 years of their whole entire life. Why should it even matter?

The first unofficial high school reunion happened about a week after graduation. Most of the new graduates attended the funeral of our first classmate to die. He spent the night out drinking underage at a bar that was known by the name of Double Vision at that time. When he left, he lived up to the bar’s name and then some. About a half mile from the bar, he crossed the centerline and hit another car head on. Thankfully the family in the other car lived to tell that story, my classmate didn’t. I didn’t attend the funeral. To be frank, even though he was popular, my classmate was cocky and mean. I really didn’t like him. I liked him even less when he almost killed others due to his poor decision. My classmates, however, went to the funeral in droves. 

I did attend 2 official class reunions. The first one I attended was the 5 year. At this point, nothing really has changed. Everyone looks the same. You still remember names. Most were doing the typical things that people in their early 20’s do and no one could afford a pricey reunion. 

The second reunion I attended was the 20 year. Only a few people looked similar to the people locked in my mind as forever teenagers with the ratted hair and tight rolled jeans. Who were all these old people? I forgot names. I mistook some classmates as spouses. A majority of attendees were in the popular group, maybe hoping to relive the best years of their lives. I was disheartened that an unpopular girl, who was always nice, seemed to still be ignored by the in group. I was extra nice to her. Overall, I found class reunions to be like the proverbial nudist colony. The ones you want to see are never there and the ones you don’t are. 

Will I attend my 25th class reunion? I don’t know. I am certainly not interested in reliving any of my childhood years.

 I think I would rather run a marathon.