I feel your joy! And it doesn't always have to be a big adventure to be thrilling. I've come to love the tiny microseasons of nature. There's something new waiting for us to savor every single day.❤️
Love your openness to changing, looking at what really makes you tick. All that you’re doing in Maine is so good for you. At home, baby steps towards daily outdoor activity will work. For me, my mental health improves drastically when I’m
Outside and moving around on a daily basis. Water activity is a bonus! But walking is pretty swell.
With the knowledge acquired over time, we cannot help but know the risks we were oblivious to when young. I think the challenge is to ensure the fear we are feeling is not actually those things like centipedes (like the one that crawled up my bell bottoms in church, there endeth that relationship). Sometimes the fear we feel is the promise of some unknown joy or love that part of us knows is there and part of us craves. To acknowledge it is my fear, because then I have the realization that my time is limited and my responsibility is to go to it, not away from it. But it's huge really and I can't see the perimeter. Am I worthy? What if it's too much? What if it's too scary? What if it disappoints?
I have become fearful also, and I know it's because of injuries that have lingered and zapped my strength. It's also because I had to give up going to the gym during the Pandemic, which for me is in a community center that has never reopened. Now, because my money-making possibilities have diminished, it's just and mostly walking. I'd do yoga if I could afford a class, but lack the motivation to do it at home. Desperately need a shot of discipline to restart my body work.
It sounds mundane but for me I think about how much better my employers' health care package was than the one I have now that I'm retired on Medicare etc. Seriously, any injuries would have received top of the line docs when I was working, --- so I'll blame my lazy butt on that, ha!
Thank you for this great essay! It was a good dose of inspiration this morning for this 59 year old, ok, my birthday is in three weeks but I can still claim the 50’s today - Upon visiting my mother in a nursing home and seeing (mostly women) all the patients in wheelchairs unable to say “YES!” to pretty much anything, I try and say “YES!” to everything I can :) I have a autoimmune disease for which I have to wear goggles outside for the sun and wind, but I found a great brand (Ziena, they don’t look too heinous) and I go!! Say “YES!” :) thanks again!
My mother stopped swimming or wearing a bathing suit somewhere around 40, even though we lived in Hawaii. Every few years I discover I’m afraid to do some physical or outdoor thing I once loved, and it takes a big push to start doing it again. At the moment I want to return to hiking snd camping — why did I ever stop?
I feel your joy! And it doesn't always have to be a big adventure to be thrilling. I've come to love the tiny microseasons of nature. There's something new waiting for us to savor every single day.❤️
Yes, there is no time to waste, and now I'll go watch TV.
Haha! Resistance is futile. 📺
Love this! I miss the younger, fearless me! She’s still in here somewhere......
Same... I think (I hope)!
Love your openness to changing, looking at what really makes you tick. All that you’re doing in Maine is so good for you. At home, baby steps towards daily outdoor activity will work. For me, my mental health improves drastically when I’m
Outside and moving around on a daily basis. Water activity is a bonus! But walking is pretty swell.
With the knowledge acquired over time, we cannot help but know the risks we were oblivious to when young. I think the challenge is to ensure the fear we are feeling is not actually those things like centipedes (like the one that crawled up my bell bottoms in church, there endeth that relationship). Sometimes the fear we feel is the promise of some unknown joy or love that part of us knows is there and part of us craves. To acknowledge it is my fear, because then I have the realization that my time is limited and my responsibility is to go to it, not away from it. But it's huge really and I can't see the perimeter. Am I worthy? What if it's too much? What if it's too scary? What if it disappoints?
Fascinating post - thank you! The British poet Philip Larkin asked "Where can we live but days?" but forgot to add, "inside or outside?" as options.
And by the way, does being in a car count as inside or outside?
I love the way this post made me reflect on what these terms mean.
I could read your writings all day long. Fabulous. I love outdoors with my dog.
Yes. Time turns turns turns, is it a revolution or simply screw you each moment. ! ??
I have become fearful also, and I know it's because of injuries that have lingered and zapped my strength. It's also because I had to give up going to the gym during the Pandemic, which for me is in a community center that has never reopened. Now, because my money-making possibilities have diminished, it's just and mostly walking. I'd do yoga if I could afford a class, but lack the motivation to do it at home. Desperately need a shot of discipline to restart my body work.
I feel seen.....where DOES that sense of fear come from, as we age?
Thank you for this!
It sounds mundane but for me I think about how much better my employers' health care package was than the one I have now that I'm retired on Medicare etc. Seriously, any injuries would have received top of the line docs when I was working, --- so I'll blame my lazy butt on that, ha!
Fantastic, as always...see you on the trails one of these days soon!
I miss my ten-speed bicycle. Sailing down back streets holds a joy like no other. But my knees revolt against the effort.
Thank you for this great essay! It was a good dose of inspiration this morning for this 59 year old, ok, my birthday is in three weeks but I can still claim the 50’s today - Upon visiting my mother in a nursing home and seeing (mostly women) all the patients in wheelchairs unable to say “YES!” to pretty much anything, I try and say “YES!” to everything I can :) I have a autoimmune disease for which I have to wear goggles outside for the sun and wind, but I found a great brand (Ziena, they don’t look too heinous) and I go!! Say “YES!” :) thanks again!
My mother stopped swimming or wearing a bathing suit somewhere around 40, even though we lived in Hawaii. Every few years I discover I’m afraid to do some physical or outdoor thing I once loved, and it takes a big push to start doing it again. At the moment I want to return to hiking snd camping — why did I ever stop?