Well friends, grab a drink and make a sandwich before you read this one. It's longer than usual and is more of a personal journal entry than anything else. Hopefully, readers will find some value in it for themselves, even if it's just as a cure for insomnia!
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I never cared how old I was. In fact, I often needed my wife to confirm my answer when somebody asked me my age. Age was just a number. I felt great. I was in great shape. People said I looked a good bit younger than I actually was. I was surrounded by people I love and activities that really interested me.
To top things off, I quit my full time teaching job at age 49 and began learning how to make a half decent living doing things I love (music) while enjoying lots of free time and total control over my schedule. Booyah!
Then came my 50th birthday.
It was amusing, but I didn't care. On I went....
Then came Covid.
Fortunately, my loved ones and I escaped serious illness, but other than the threat of getting sick, that weird Covid period offered a lot of positives in terms of re-prioritizing how we spend our time and who we spend it with. I was also lucky to be financially stable during that time. Overall, I still felt really good.
I was 51, but I still didn't really care about my age.
Due to multiple financial stimulus checks issued by the US government during Covid, and the overall slow-down of work life that remained from the Covid period, my family was able to rent a nice house at the beach for an entire month. Booyah again!
We had an outstanding time, and I realized that as driven as I am to achieve my goals, I can be equally at ease with having no goals at all.
I turned 52 a few weeks after we returned home.
And that's when I began to care about my age.
It wasn't really about the number. It was more about the way I started to feel.
How did I feel?
Busy. Really busy!
So called "gig workers" like me were pretty well shut down during the pandemic. As a musician, there were hardly any concerts, weddings, parties, events, or people gathered to have a good time. Everything got postponed....
Until the summer of '21.
July of 2021 started a tidal wave of activity as the world really began to embrace a return to pre-covid life. There were weddings, parties and gatherings all the time. People started scheduling things on unusual days of the week in order to get them on the schedule at all.
It was nuts!
Like my other gig worker friends, I grabbed my surfboard and vowed to ride the wave until it eventually fizzled out.
I was still 52, loving the high-energy return to activities, and still feeling great. I set goals again and got to work. My calendar was full of gigs and personal projects.
When we got back to the rented beach house in 2022, I was dead tired. The world had returned enough to normal that we could only afford to stay for the usual one week. It had been a crazy year. I was doing a ton of everything I loved to do.
But as I got more tired, I began to enjoy and appreciate it all a bit less. I resolved to chill out a bit, take care of myself, maybe even slow down a tad.
But the post covid wave still hadn't crashed, so I kept riding. I started to wonder if I was too old for "surfing" like this.
As 2022 rolled into 2023 and got even busier, I tried to manage myself better.
In many ways, I did. But in some ways I didn't.
By the time we rented the beach house for a week in 2023, I was pretty happy, only somewhat tired, and mostly relaxed- or so I thought.
I don't think I eliminated stress or became better at managing it that year. I think I just ended up allowing it to morph from one form to another.
Even though my wife and I had been empty nesters since the covid "lockdown" ended, it suddenly felt like something new, despite us staying well connected to our daughters and seeing them fairly often.
I was still tired, but I wasn't forcing myself to keep up with my running and fitness routines because at times, they seemed to be an added stressor- just one more thing to get done each day. In retrospect, this was a mistake I intend not to repeat.
I gained 15 pounds.
Instead of scoffing at my friends who view themselves as "too old to kick ass", I started wondering if my best days were behind me.
"What do I do now?" I thought. My kids have moved out. I quit my teaching career. My music life is becoming so intense that it's pretty stressful at times. I'm out of shape and overweight.
I seem to have aged a fair amount in the past 5 years. My beard is now almost totally gray. I don't move as well as I used to. I don't have the consistent energy I'm used to having.
I'm 54. Unlike just a few years ago, I am well aware that I'm 54.
People have taken to calling me sir lately instead of younger terms like, "bro" or "man". On our local sledding hill, I now notice that I'm the oldest one out there. I also notice my heavy breathing after climbing up the hill each time.
All of these things are ingredients in my current mental entree of self-doubt, served with an unhealthy side of worrying about what life will be like as an elderly man; what will go wrong, and what I won't be able to do anymore.
"C'mon man! Those days haven't come yet!" I tell myself.
I think I'm right, yet I don't quite feel it, so I'm not quite sure if I believe it.
A longer view of my wellness history would indicate that I am right on course for the periodic problem I seem to have every five or so years.
The equation is standard: lack of physical fitness + activity overload + self-pressure = mental weakness and a damaged outlook on life.
Fortunately, I think I know how to return to my best self. As I said, I seem to be in my normal cycle. I began trying to reclaim myself a few weeks ago with better eating, easing into the exercise habits I used to enjoy, and returning to the sledding hill after a 2 year snow drought in my town.
I'm still working on deciding what I want my schedule to look like, developing better sleeping routines, focusing on the reality that I can still do everything I could do 2 years ago, and being grateful for that as long as it lasts.
And, in case I need a steroid shot of "age doesn't matter" inspiration, I'm going to revisit this article about one of my running/aging heroes: Fauna Singh.
Singh began running at age 89- that's right- 89! He ran his first marathon in his 90's and continued running past his 100th birthday. He's currently 112 years old.
I wonder if he worries about how old he is, or if he even knows.
Follow Wise & Shine for more stories from our talented staff. You can also visit Todd's personal Five O'Clock Shadow blog. For more on Todd as a musician, visit toddfulginiti.com
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