They say What’s For You Won’t Go Past You and maybe that is true and maybe it is not. Sat with the the younger Mr. Wilner and shared a story of vanity and sanity.
Won’t share all of the details because the the long and winding road to get from here to there isn’t something I care to retrace this evening so instead I’ll share a few other things.
I’ll say I told him about some of the people and things I walked away from. I talked about my choice to go silent and refuse to communicate with people I saw daily and why.
I explained there is a switch that can get turned off and if it does I have had enough and feel no need to engage. It is a shock and surprise to some but it is there.
Takes a bit get it to come out but if it happens I probably feel like you handed me the scissors and that is enough. Is it a good trait or bad?
Well it depends on who you are and what you believe in. There may come a day when I dislike it and feel badly but it hasn’t happened yet.
Got other things that are of more importance to focus and improve upon. We’re all a work in progress aren’t we.
I…Ache
I hit the gym and did just short of an hour of cardio and was on my way out when the 22 year-old trainer fist bumped me and asked if I lifted.
“Not today, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
He told me that if I hung out he would show me a couple of things and I relented.
Figured if he is that interested in trying to secure me as a customer I’d give him a chance to show me a couple of things.
The guy pushed me hard and I made a mental note to myself to remember vanity and sanity. Vanity pushed me into a higher weight and sanity kept me from letting myself get egged into doing more than I did.
Vanity didn’t like that because there was a time when I could have done so. Truth is I probably could have gone a little longer but sanity reminded me that I don’t want to be so sore I can’t do anything tomorrow.
My triceps…ache and my ego hurts just a little.
Some things about aging are easy for me to accept but this is not one of them. I am ambivalent about not having a full head of hair and though it would be nice to have the six pack I am cool without it.
Had it for years and if I ever get truly serious about my diet, maybe I can get it back but it doesn’t drive me.
But throwing iron around and not worrying about the clinking and clanking creating a creak or crack that didn’t exist is hard. Recognizing that I tore muscle isn’t easy.
Reminds me a bit of when my parent’s first moved and dad would sit in a chair and use arm strength to send boxes sliding across the room.
“Don’t tell your mother. She’ll say I am not supposed to do this.”
I asked him if he thought she was deaf or if after almost 50 years didn’t know who he was.
And then I stacked three boxes on top of each other and walked them across the room. Dad flipped up his middle finger and we laughed.
Eight years later here I am.
Evolution
The younger Mr. Wilner and my oldest nephew both have full time work. Neither is setting records for take home pay but no one expects any different at their age.
Something about a comment placed upon a page reminded me of a conversation with their grandfather about what would happen when his grandchildren got to a certain place in time and he wasn’t there to see it.
I told him I had had the conversation with both of my grandfathers but it was slightly different because they never expected to live long enough to see such sights.
They were in their nineties and both asked in their way to make sure I mentioned their interest in the adult lives of their great-grandchildren.
I promised to do so.
Dad wasn’t bitter about the hand he was dealt, not during this conversation though I saw him at times where it was clear the impact of it all weighed upon him.
We’re in the middle of an evolution now. Wasn’t long ago that when the family gathered at my folk’s house there was a question about how many grandchildren we’d get to and a feeling that there was always at least one in diapers or a toddler.
And then it was always at least one in elementary school and now there is only one left in high school and that time is soon to come a close.
There are no new or young parents anymore and conversations about retirement have taken on a different tone.
Slowly that moving sidewalk of life has moved me from being the youngest of the adult Wilner men to the oldest, just one step behind the senior citizens.
They were right, it went faster than I expected.
Leave a Reply