Oh My Aching....

Bradley Rose, Peloton

I take a lot of Peloton classes from a young Brit named Bradley Rose. He's funny, cute (I may need glasses but I'm not blind), and does a lot of Pop Punk rides, which I love.  And occasionally he'll drop some life affirming wisdom that I need to hear.  But his brand is a light, self-effacing humor, and he's got that 30-something "I'm getting so old" attitude that I remember having myself but laugh at now. In one of the classes I took recently he said he's to the point he doesn't know if he has an injury or this is the way he's going to be, and then went on to complain about all his aches and pains when he gets up in the morning. I had to smile and shake my head and think to myself, "Oh, honey, you have no idea. Just wait."

But it was interesting timing because after a busy, busy Sunday I had wrapped myself in my fancy heating pad that I got for Christmas last year and wondered if I overdid it and that's why my back was screaming profanity at me or if I was coming down with something because my temperature was just slightly elevated. Or was my temperature elevated because I was wearing a heating pad? Or maybe it was a bit of both.  And how sad is it that someone gets you a heating pad for a gift...and you're actually excited about it?!

I admittedly did a lot of activities that day that would challenge anyone who isn't a professional athlete's back but it hurt for days. It's not a shock or particularly unusual that I abuse my body the way I did on the weekend because, like a lot of us, when else do you have a chance to get stuff done, so you just have to suck it up and push yourself to your limits and accept you'll suffer some soreness because of it, The newish part is that it takes forever to stop hurting. That's the difference between me now and the me who was once Bradley Rose's age.  Yeah, I woke up stiff a lot in my 30's, but walked or steam showered it out. Now once I tweak something, it stays tweaked.

And suddenly things happen that I have NO clue how they happened.  For example, I've been nursing a sore left ankle all summer.  It got bad enough at one point I wrapped it in order to click into the bike.  I think maybe, but I'm not sure, that I actually hurt it clipping out of the bike, which takes a little effort. If you look at Bradley's shoes in the photo, that red part on the bottom actually locks into the pedal so you don't slip and hurt yourself.  But you do have to turn your ankle a bit to release the shoe, so it was all I could think of that could have happened.  Ironic?  Yeah.  Well, it gets worse. So a couple of months after the ankle started, my left hand started to give me a lot of trouble.  It ached at its best.  It made me wince at its worst. But not the wrist, the hand and the fleshy part of the hand is the part that hurts.  I panicked that it might be arthritis starting, but it wasn't the joint.  Then I thought carpal tunnel.  But the symptoms aren't quite right for that either.  I work a lot on the keyboard and notice I rest that part of my hand on the wrist pad, so maybe that's the cause...but more likely it's how I hold my hands on the handlebars of the bike.  And when it's flaring, riding the bike can be extra spicy. I have to consider that's the cause.  Again, irony raises its head...the very thing I rely on to keep myself limber and active is potentially injuring me, and I haven't even talked about my knees!

I'm wondering when and how my body decided to hang on to every small insult I impose on it and torture me with it, but I know I'm not alone because my husband mentioned yesterday that a bump he had incurred when he tripped over something a couple of weeks ago is still there and bothering him.  So, here we are: oddly sore 60-somethings where this is waiting for us this coming weekend:

My back hurts just thinking about it.  

How about you?  Noticing any odd aches and pains that linger as you age?  Have you found a great way to alleviate the issues?  Do please share!!

The Grand Advantage, Part One: A Second Childhood

 Over time I have made some observations about grandparents. Not judgments, observations:

• They are often indulgent because they want to make up for what they believe they could not give their own children (ironically, mine weren't particularly generous - ask any of my cousins - but there are exceptions to every rule).
  
  
• They are trying to make up for the parenting mistakes they made with their own kids that run the gamut from working too much, being too impatient, too judgmental, you name it.
  
  
• They are pursuing a second childhood through their grandkids (again, mine missed that day in Grandparent School - and maybe that's why I would watch others so closely).

Once I became one I had to plead guilty on all counts. And I'm sorry, but I'm not all that sorry about it. There are some lines I have to sometimes be reminded not to cross, and I try to let my child raise her own children without being a total helicopter parent. She'll have to tell you how I do on that count.

But in light of my last post, I thought I'd start with the fun one to lighten the mood: getting a shot at a second childhood. And in that regard, I'm all in.

Life can tend to suck: it's stressful, full of obligations and now, as we head into our fourth quarter, we're often limping into the huddle with bumps and bruises. But when the opportunity to spend time with the Grands (as I collectively call mine) arises, life's problems get shoved aside and it's time to just live. Now I'll grant you, they often have more energy than I do, or can sustain anyway, but I'm getting a chance to indulge unapologetically in things I wouldn't get too ordinarily. As a friend recently observed from my social media, we go to the zoo a lot. For one, it's easy and close, but I love the zoo and so does my granddaughter - her love is more about the fact that they have ice cream and cotton candy, I think, than the animals themselves, but hey we can have dovetailing interests. With her on our Adventure Saturdays I have the unbridled excuse to go to the Science Center, the zoo, the aviary, the Natural History Museum, the children's section of the library, the park, the mall, shopping for toys, and oh yes, a lot of ice cream stands. Ironically about the only thing we haven't really done a lot of is go to the Children's Museum - got to leave something for the actual parents to share with her I suppose.

With my grandson, I've been able to re-engage with my childhood fascination with Godzilla. I might feel a little guilty about encouraging that one I will admit: after all, the Titans do tend to do a lot of stomping on cities and terrorizing of people on their way to being a metaphor about the nuclear age, but I will make the argument that I grew up watching Godzilla, and I feed birds and rescue dogs - I got the message of those movies early on and am not a violent person, so I think he's intelligent enough to do the same. The other day we watched the Miles Morales iteration of Spider-Man.  Candidly, those are brilliant films, and if you haven't seen the two animated installments of the Spider-Man franchise, do yourself a favor: grands or no grands, and check them out.  But I can and do because I've got the built-in excuse of entertaining a nearly 7 yr-old boy.

With grandchildren, we have ready-made excuses to go to parades, fall festivals, carve pumpkins, bake cookies, go to ball games, you name it. We get to watch their excitement and catch onto some of it when they experience something for the first time.  They provide us the very necessary opportunity to be reminded that life is not just about our obligations, but it's about living. They remind us that big joy can be found in little packages. I am blessed to have them in my life to remind me of these things.  And if it took getting older to get to that, then I'm fine with it.