the acceptance of aging

I've been looking at and evaluating my body lately.  My 61 year old body.  61!  How did that happen?  I mean, I know how it happened and I prefer that to the alternative, but still, it just seemed to happen so fast. 

I liked the 40s (even though I went through menopause) and the 50s were good years too.  But my 60s, my seventh decade, is taking some getting used to. Who is that person looking back at me in the mirror?  I mean, some major changes have taken place, more I think in the last 10 than in the previous 20 or 30. 

Up until about a year and a half ago OK, probably closer to two years, I worked out at the gym for an hour and then walked on the treadmill for another hour three times a week and yoga for an hour once a week.

I was very buff. Great arms, shoulders, legs, butt, stomach, even my neck, all tight, firm, toned and shapely. Even had some faux cleavage.

But then we completed the move to the country house and although there is a gym here at the junior college, the hours are restricted for non-students and I could never work out a new routine given the times that the gym was available to me (I don't get up early enough for the morning session and by late afternoon, I'm either working on something or ready for a drink). I've also got a list of other excuses. Fact is, I've found other ways to fill that 2 hours a day three times a week. Keeping fit is time consuming.

But now, though, I feel and look slacker. All that muscle turned to fat and migrated to my stomach. I'm not fat at 5'4” and 123 pounds and yet I have a ring around my middle that bulges over the waistband of my pants.  

At 50 I underwent an interior image metamorphosis.  You know, the picture you carry around in your head that reflects how you feel, think you look.  Even with the dim light and the small antique sulfur stained mirror in the bathroom, I could no longer reconcile the image in my head with the one that looked back at me.

I didn't expect to have to make another adjustment so soon.   This bathroom here is brighter, less forgiving.  The mirror is bigger and newer.

The 50s is when the body starts breaking down. That's when gray started creeping into my hair though even at 61 it's still mostly dark, the gray strands only seen close up. But it's also when my thyroid went wacky and I was diagnosed with osteoporosis. Hence all the time spent in the gym. And then towards the end of that decade my cholesterol shot up. As ailments go though, these are pretty easy to handle.

I guess the thing I like least about this aging process is my skin. It's no longer smooth and blemish free. Now, I have a texture. It's like my skin stretched and it's getting crepe. Ugh. Even the word sounds icky. Every scar I ever had has come back and sun damage is showing up; scaly spots, brown spots...my own personal sun spots. This white northern european heritage of mine doesn't age well. My friend Phyllis from India who is in her late 70s has gorgeous skin.

I don't mind being older. I've lived a good life and I'm still living a good life. And I don't really mind looking older. I have no desire to extend a youthful appearance through artificial means. I see lots of beauty in aged faces and there's a certain freedom in having an aging body.

I just wish I could shed my skin like a snake and have it refreshed now and then.