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Wait, I'm Too Young To Get Old

22.08.11

In my youth, I had imagined myself the miraculous exception to the ultimate inevitable. Even in middle age, I expected everyone else I knew to pass before me. And when it was my turn, I imagined my passing like a fast-forwarded movie that I'd watch from a comfortable viewing room, sipping wine, munching popcorn.

Now, after close to 60 years of a bone-rattling diet of jogging, basketball and tennis, my surgeon's diagnosis indicates that rather than defying fate, I have been fulfilling it. Physically building myself up was also wearing my bones down. Arthritis is also irreversible, a word as foreign to me as inevitable. And no amounts of will, exercise and sweat can correct the problem. Instead my doctor recommended swimming, cycling or elliptical trainers — exercises that seem as appetizing to me as eating pre-chewed gourmet food.

As a child, running approximated flight. I'd dash from the confinement of my parents' home and authority to the freedom of play in the park with friends. And as an adult, running returned me to those exhilarating flights of youth. With the sun on my back and the shadow of my youth before me, I left all anxiety, worry and problems in my wake. I followed my shadow, a lithe and lanky figure without a trace of gray hair, creaky joints or wrinkled skin. During those runs, I felt immortal, like young Icarus must have felt in flight.

Source: Hartford Courant