Fuck It I'm 50

Spooky how much we know what the right thing to do is and how we don’t do it. What is that mind, body split about?

I know that if I don’t eat well, have erratic sleep patterns, drink too much wine and DON’T get enough exercise I feel bad. My machine feels compromised and that makes me believe that I am a bad and unworthy person.

I just got in from the gym and of course, as always, I have a revived equanimity. Duh.

As a real excuse, I could go to the gym because my face stopped hurting about midday, hope it stays that way.

But I could have gone to the gym before my face started hurting too. It’s been a week.

I am lucky in that I really truly enjoy working out, I like exercise, not extreme exercise, but consistent exercise that makes you sweat, makes you feel alive exercise. Some people really hate it and I feel bad for them, because it is one of the best ways to improve just about everything.

So I think I am going to jump to the Physical category tonight, after a brief update on the day.

My morning was phone calls back to back. All important, personally, and some useful in moving the big picture ahead, but close to three hours worth. It’s amazing how quickly in-depth conversations can devour time.

Dale, call me when you are feeling low, OK?

But then I was in a crabby, my day, my life, is fading, slipping by, running away from me, laughing like a kid who has stolen my favorite toy. I remember when I was in my 20s and I rode the days like gentle trained horses, loping to sunset, formally my favorite time of day. Now I am painfully aware of the sinking sun and the outcome of the day, and what I can pull off tomorrow, because I usually have failed to achieve what I had expected to achieve on that day, and that day is going, going, gone.

Goes back to trimming things back. Oh yay, that’s what I’m doing.

OK, the Physical thing. Here we go.

As I said, I need to monitor my diet. Since I have been mildly depressed I have been haphazard about what I make to eat. I have noticed that I have become disassociate from what’s in the refrigerator, and when I think of cooking a meal I have no imagination at all. Salads bore me and coffee isn’t tasting good. Last week even wine wasn’t tasting good. It’s all blah. I’ve lost some weight as a result, and that conversely, and perhaps perversely, had made me feel strong and good about myself.

But this has been combined with a lack of my usual level of exercise. So then I feel worse about myself, balancing out the small weight lose with an out of shape feeling.

So-eat better, work out more, drink less wine. I can do these things.

The sleep thing is different. I have never been able to make myself go to bed when I really need to. I am the kind of person who, if I have been out, needs to come home and wind down, for at least an hour. And I have recognized for years that this a huge waste of time. Just go to bed for fuck’s sake. There is nothing that will reveal itself to you at 11pm that won’t be a better and saner thought the next day. But no, I need to stay up, check email, watch some TV and fart around.

Endeavor #1 – be more disciplined about going to bed, because I really am better in the morning, and I know I need eight hours a night.

Then there are the aging aliments. Super yucky, gross, aging is weird, pain sucks, I don’t want to deal. But I already know if you don’t deal you have to double deal down the road. So my medical list includes: seeing the dentist about this painful sinus thing, (thank you Patty and Don who encouraged/forced me to call the dentist), deal with my ravished left big toe nail and rampant foot rot on my left foot, think about my recurring carpel tunnel which is now inflamed, set up my annual exam that is coming up soon, address my anxiety and soft wind of depression, and get going on the massive amount of dental work I need to pull off/out in the next six-ten months.

I think that’s it for the laundry list, but I have to say it does start to hurt when you’re body is aging. I have a high pain threshold, and while that has served my survival, it has not served my health.

So here’s the big confession. I have health insurance right now and I need to use it before I lose it. It will run out at the end of January and I need to have as much of the above seen to before that.

Sadly it does not take care of the very painful and very expensive dental stuff. But I have come to terms with that, in the most sublime, I am in denial, kind of way.

So I have some health planning to do, so to speak. I haven’t even sorted out who I can talk to on my health plan.

November is going to be harsh-I have to make it through the list I posted on 10/28, (already seems like ancient history) and there are lots of areas of my life that need thoughtful and close scrutiny. I suggest that I have a clear, delineated plan by the end of the first week of December.

A plan I will fold into a paper airplane and launch out my window, but a plan nonetheless.

And it’s Halloween. I think I have decided to stay in, because it is also daylight savings time and I get an extra hour leg up on my favorite day, Sunday.

Here’s to waking up with lots of energy on a day when I need it. I need to nail two lesson plans for teaching two classes on Monday and get moving on the de Young project, one of the important pieces to the puzzle called my future, that will be showing up in future calculations on the building of my paper airplanes.