As regular readers know, it’s been a veritable “turning 60 fest” around here recently. I think mine is the next turning, heading at me in early February.
I’m in a big reflective space about how I want to engage with the next decade in body and spirit, and I thought I should take a look at the second post I wrote for this blog, shortly after I turned 50.
As I reread it, I was pleased at how well my sense of what I wanted has stayed true. A lot has happened in the past nine years — covid, menopause, <all that, waving vaguely at The World.>. Deaths. Work that matters deeply. Love in so many permutations. I’ve covered thousands of kilometres on my bike in many countries and in the virtual world of Zwift, done hundreds of sun salutations, deadlifted 200 lbs in one glorious moment. I’m still running when I feel like it, slower than I ever thought would be “okay.” Walking. Breathing.
I am still living in that gentle tension between knowing and accepting that I am going to just keep slowing down, losing random things like my eyebrows (wtf?), watching my forehead and eyelids droop, battling with hormones, feeling my energy shift in endless ways — and knowing that I can always keep building strength and agility, move my body through space in ways that give me all the good hormones and trust in everything that is still here.
When you are riding on a set course in Zwift, you get a little ghost avatar in front or behind you to show you what pace you were at the last time you rode this course. When I reread the post I wrote in 2015, I pictured that lithe little old lady like that ghost avatar. She’s getting closer to being completely superimposed over me. And I still hold her with care. My body, my routines? They’re imperfect. But they are always about honouring who I am today — and how I want to be as I age.
I think I can safely say I no longer have the pituitary gland of a 25 year old. But that’s okay. So far, I feel like I’m giving that ghost future self the care she needs.
Fieldpoppy is Cate Creede-Desmarais, who lives in the part of the world currently called Toronto.