These are thoughts that are a little late in being put down into anything that may be comprehensible...
Just as a warning....it's likely to be compete word salad. Well, I won't use the word "bigly" so you'll be spared THAT level of salad....
Anywhooooo, way back in June, before the Rio Grande games, there was a small group of us gathered on our back porch the evening before the games...and we were chatting about training, training as we age, goals, body image struggles that STILL haunt us as we slide WAY past middle age...and I mentioned something about not being strong...
Sarah, laughed at me...I laughed at myself and we (maybe me) realized that some of this comes from who we see...who we are around. I was reminded of what my friend Chris said to Grace once after some dude came up to her asking about training or some such thing...and ( forgive me for the murder of the story ) when he left, Chris said something to Grace like why would he ask me....I'm just a normal sized old lady...or NSOL for those in the know.
I am around all these amazingly strong women doing amazingly strong things and I am still in a place that I look at my body's outward expression and judge myself extremely harshly for not looking a certain way...this certain muscly way...and I actively discount my strength. I am also still working on healing some old old shit in regard to disordered eating...and frankly, most of us were trained in the horrid art of comparison...
I often forget that the people I know are about as far from "typical" middle aged women as you can get...and I often fucking forget that I am in my mid 50's....comparing myself to women much younger or even comparing myself to my 40 year old self; which is frankly...useless...
It is great to have these sort of moments to learn from...to have these women in my life....to move forward and take i; in a deeper way, that yet again, it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing..it is about what I am doing, or since you are reading this..what YOU are doing....right now...not 10 or 20 years ago, but right now. To remind myself that I didn't enjoy exercise at all until, oh, 10-12 years ago.
Remembering too, something a coach told me early early on..."be grateful you can move Mona."
Given some of my physical issues, I know that at some point I may not be able to do...well...lots down the road.
So, I'll just bumble along, part of the NSOL club....working on healing my relationship with food, with my body, with injuries, with insecurities; all the while reminding myself I am not anyone else and I am not alone...
Normal Sized Old Ladies indeed....Love you guys.
