I am 43....older and wiser baby!!

                I am 43 and a day and I feel the happiest I have ever felt. Now, don't confuse the word "happiest"with what most people consider trouble-free, or ecstatic living even. I am simply at peace, that is my definition of happy. For as long as I remember I've been trying to change things outside and inside of me and all of the sudden all of those concerns have melted away with time, with only one central focus in mind, peace. For as long as I remember I've been trying to change my body, change my style, change my hair, change the way I am friends with people.....all in the spirit of "I cannot possibly be doing it right all along". Yet, maybe it's the age, or maybe it's the lack of results that so much trying brings, but suddenly I don't want to go that route anymore. There is a certain fearlessness about being 43 that brings me so much more energy and strength. and those are reasons enough to stop trying.

              Another reason I am super happy is that my long term mysterious injury on my right foot seems to have disappeared, or at least lessened. When you love running as much as I do, it's so depressing not being able to run, to really move and feel your powerful legs beat beneath you. The way I have been preventing injury these days is running 90% of my run at a comfortable aerobic pace, and then sprinting the last 10%. That way I still get that high that one gets from pushing hard, but I do it on a body that's already warmed up and ready to go. As an aside, I would not say I am back 100% yet. I have not really taken my runs out on the road and even on the 'dread'mill I have not added an incline to my runs. For now, it's just running without all the other technical things I will need in a trail race, but, trying really hard to continue running and no re-injuring myself. 

             One advantage of being older (by society's standards that is...for I do not feel a day over 22) is the ability to see that sexy is an amorphous thing which the viewer and the entity being viewed can easily manipulate without the need to do much of anything but change ones mind. I have experienced women larger than me, even less fit than me strut their shit with so much confidence, so much pride that it literally changes my experience of them. When you strut sexy, people see sexy. It has NOTHING to do with body size, clothing, make-up, age....nothing. We all have the ability to pretty much control how others see us, no matter what size out body is. Young people sadly often lack this knowledge and try super hard to look as sexy as they want to feel. While this is an admirable goal, it leads us to such misery and self-loathing. I have tortured myself for years trying to look as sexy as I wanted to feel and all it brought me was a distorted sense of self and low self-esteem, plus it's exhausting.