| Current mood: |  recumbent |
More musings for you all...lol
From The Book...'Normal is Just a Setting on Your Dryer' by Patsy Clairmont who also authored "God Uses Cracked Pots"
"Chapter 2 - Sure I Can
Most of us over 40 find it difficult to believe er're losing our youth. Our minds are still spunky, at least in a sputtering kind of way, and tend to send inaccurate information to our bodies like "You can still leap buildings in a single bound," Right! I can hardly step into an elevator without having my arches fall.
At 47 (at the time of writing), my mind is marching to "The battle Hymn of the Republic," while my body is humming in the background, "That'll be the day." Even with my increasing physical disruptions, I keep holding my thumb over the birth date on my drivers license when I'm cashing a check.
My friend Claris, a heroic woman who drove school buses for 19 years and has lived to tell about it, forgot her age. It had to be amnesia that caused her to be coaxed into going roller-skating in her forties. An hour later she was in an ambulance, and she wasn't driving. A cast, crutches, and several months later, Claris was back wheeling around in her bus, which has the only sized wheels she now trusts to hold her up. Speaking of holding up,...
Jim was certain he could reach a little higher than his arm span while tottering on the top rung of the ladder. Need I tell you any more? Our fiftyish friend came down like the Jericho walls, but instead of broken pitchers, he had broken ribs. After being taped back together, he felt every breath he took. Speaking of breathtaking,...
Meagan decided to take up downhill skiing... at 40. Her first out she fell backwards on her skis, but they didn't release. That was not good. Meagan had to be removed from the slopes on a stretcher by the ski patrol. She wore a mega foam collar for months.
You would think we would learn from our friends' examples. Well, actually I did. I don't roller-skate, climb ladders, or ski downhill. No, not me: I'm too smart to try those tricky feats. Instead, I decided to ride a five-speed bicycle. My infamous ride would have been a cinch had I ever before ridden a bike with the brakes on the handlebars, which I had not. That became quite clear to who knows how many.
My son Jason and I rode our bikes to a nearby store, where, instead of braking when the bike slowed down, I side-saddled it and jumped off like Annie Oakley. I ran into the store and bought a couple of small items. We didn't have a basket, but I was confident I could manage the bike and the bag. It had been many years since I had ridden a bicycle. (Actually, I was eight when I got my last bike.) But you know what they say: "Once you learn, you never forget."
We were almost home when my bike began to pick up speed. Evidently there was more of an incline on our street that I had realized. For a moment I felt like a kid again, with the wind whipping through my tresses and the houses passing by in a whirl of colors. Suddenly, I recognized the whirling greens as my house. I instinctively pedaled backwards to brake. Nothing happened. I mean, nothing happened! My acceleration was such that I could see that I was headed rapidly for the side street. If my calculations were correct, I would be passing it at the speed of light.
Feeling I was losing control of this ride, I kind of panicked. Then I recalled Les's reminding me, as I rode away, that the brakes were located on my handlebars. and that I should squeeze them to stop. I could only grip on one side because of the bag, and when I squeezed, nothing happened. Seeing my life skateboard past me, I grabbed for the other grip, bag and all, and pulled as hard as I could. Sure enough, something happened!
I became airborne. Over the handlebars and into the wild, blue yonder.I'm sure I looked like a 747 wide-body. That is, until my landing. I did a belly-flop glide down my sidewalk/runway, stopping just before I became a permanent design on our front step.
Jason looked down at me in utter amazement. I'm not sure if her could believe I could ride a bicycle that fast of fly that high.
If this had happened to you or you had observed it happening to someone else, what would you expect the first words out of the person's mouth to be? Perhaps "Call 911!" or "Get your dad!"
Well, that's what a normal person might say. But not me.The first words out of my swelling lips, while my face was still ingrained in the cement, were, "Is anyone looking?"
Is anyone looking! Give me a break! The sidewalk/slide had torn my pant leg off, my knee was ripped and gushing, I had skid marks on my stomach, my elbow felt like Rice Krispies, my ribs had a Vise-Grp on my lungs, and I wanted to know, "Is anyone looking?"
With Jason's help, I limped into the house, carefully lowered myself into a chair, and cried. My tears were as much out of embarrassment as from pain.
From my emotional response, I had obviously damaged something more than my body. Mine was a giveaway statement of someone suffering from fractured pride.
But then I wondered: Isn't that true for any of us who can't accept our limitations?"
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That's all for now. I've been keeping the strangest hours lately. I went to bed last night at 10 and I was awake at 2 and it's 5:45 now and I'm thinking about going back to sleep for a bit... if I can.
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