Fess up b!tches, I'll start......58....LOOK 35.
I'm 56. Some days I feel 30, some days I feel 104. Right now I'm feeling my age plus a little 'cause I started the day lugging a jug of spray around the hay field for 2 hours seeking out blackberries and queen anne's lace. The bending and off-center balance kinks me up a bit. I'm not sure if I get stiff and sore more easily now or if I just forgot being stiff and sore when I was younger.
I'm blonde-ish .. dirty blonde, lighter than brown. I had a little gray in spots by 25. More now. And a good bit of sun bleach obfuscating the extent of actual gray. (Again, blame the hay field for that sun bleaching.) I've put on some pounds I don't want ... new (ish ... 2-1/2 years) GF is a good cook and since she can't digest vegetables (genetic SNP) we eat a lot more fatty food than I'm used to. That throws off my balance a bit and affects my flexibility.
Really .. so far there isn't a lot I can't do today that I couldn't do at 40, maybe some things I can do that I couldn't do then. I know there's a turning point coming but either it isn't here yet or I've learned to compensate in other ways without really being conscious of it.
One thing I can say for sure ... 56 does not mean what I thought it meant when I was 30. Though I saw a lot of people in their early-mid 50s back then who seemed to have turned the corner and were incapable of doing the things I want todo, it does not seem to be happening to me. I can't go run 5 miles without puking up my lungs, but I can still pick up my backpack and put down 15 miles or more ... I pay for it, but I paid for it then, too. That's what conditioning on the couch for 6 months gets you.
More and more it seems like calendar age is just a number, not the same as functional age.
I suppose you don't have to be told this, but stay away from ouija boards. In hindsight a mixed blessing but bad for a time. When I was about 10-12 some kids in school were messing with one. Never believed in that shyte, but it planted a seed that hung over my head. Said I'd die when I was 34. I lived up through 33 haulin' ass without a care in the world 'cause .. I wasn't 34 yet. 34 I spent pretty carefully. Every day since I turned 35 was a day I never thought I'd see and I'm thankful for and each has been a blessing. I'll take the gray hairs sneaking in there, a few pounds, some rusty, creaky joints .. I'm **alive** and that's not to be taken for granted.
Tom
