The Wheels on the Bus...

...have fallen off...fallen off...fallen off.

I can mark when they fell off. It started with the pandemic. So many terrible things can be marked back to the pandemic. You could back it up and go to the first Trump election, but let's be honest, as terrible as that was we all felt like we could make it through.

Then the pandemic.

So we were dealing with the first Trump administration and starting to worry that there might be a second. Then the pandemic hit. And his administration handled it about as badly as they could have. They could have come out of it really strong, take credit for the miracle pace of the vaccine for example. I mean, even if it wasn't the complete silver bullet, it was a game changer and the speed at which it was developed was amazing.

But they couldn't get out of their own way to take credit for that. Instead they convinced people to ignore the refrigerator trucks parked outside of the morgues and not take the vaccine when it became available. Astounding.

So anyway, pandemic, bus wheels.

I'm not talking about society, I'm talking about health, my health specifically. Right before the pandemic I was in probably the best shape of my middle age years. I was at the gym 5 days a week, lifting heavy weights. Cardio was cardioing. I had channeled the anger at the Trump election into getting stronger. I had taken the grief of my mother dying and put it in a box every day for that stretch at the gym. It was so ingrained that dropping the gym was the last thing we did as things started to shut down.

But shut down they did. And the personal and collective stress, all of us facing the uncertainty of the pandemic made all of our stress levels higher, took its toll. Cooking at home became baking at home. Treats because we needed the joy. Serotonin eating. Then before I had fully processed the grief of losing my own mother we lost Brent's. I've talked about the guilt that came with the grief and that increased the cortisol another bump.

We eventually built a little small gym space at home. But we weren't able to get the treadmill until August, and the weights we had weren't even close to what had been available. And the loss of the machines as well. And the fact that using a gym, working out, is all habit based, and it's so much easier to fall out of habit than it is to maintain one.

Then Tig broke his leg and every moment was dedicated to his recovery.

That year is the year the wheels fell of the bus as far as my health and fitness is concerned and I haven't been able to get them back on since. Even though I figured out some food issues and I've gotten back to being really consistent with workouts when you are playing from behind it's really hard to catch up.

Because it's an area I find interesting my newsfeed gives me tons of articles on health and longevity. Do you know the best way to be healthy later in life? Get in shape early in life. Seriously. Like compounding interest with money. Start early. You can do something later, but it's not going to be what you could have done if you had started earlier.

Well, gee, thanks. Good to read at 56. Not like I would have followed it at 26. I was BUSY. It's sort of like I knew before I started smoking that smoking was bad for me, but I did it anyway. I knew at 26 I should get back to working out but I had a toddler and fuck you.

ANYWAY...

Before the pandemic I was keeping the injuries at bay, the weight consistent, the cardio doing it's thing. I wasn't completely happy about the results I was getting, because I wasn't thin, and I am never happy about that even though I KNOW I will never be thin. But as my workout shirt said, "Goal Weight: Strong AF" I was doing what I needed to do to keep the wheels on the bus.

And the crazy thing is, that even though I've just spent quite a bit of time whining, I know that what I'm doing is what I should be doing. I know that I might not ever recapture where I was, but by doing what I do I am slowing the slide. The wheels my have fallen off, but for now, the rims are holding. It might not be a smooth ride, but we are still going forward.

I can't go back and change what has happened. I can't stop the terrible stretch of time from November 2016- well.... I'll let you know when it ends. I can't soothe out the stress of the past. I can't make things happen that didn't, or stop things from happening that did. But I can get out to the gym five days a week, lift heavy things and put them back down, and do my cardio.

Stay healthy. Do what you can to be the best you can.

And whine when you need to.