LORD, HELP ME PRESERVE MY DIGNITY!!!!

Me as I start my new chapter in life!

I am in a new chapter of my life.  And the goal?  To keep my dignity about me!  The chapter you ask?  Surviving working with a trainer and physical therapist.  Beautiful people in body and spirit, both of them.  I especially enjoy the young man, Dean, who is my trainer.  A brilliant young man who takes his work very seriously.  But he puts my body in positions that I haven’t tried since I was six months old.

Age I could last lift my legs
over my head.

I mean, when is the last time you put your legs over your head?  You know the position.  The getting-ready-to-change-a-diaper position!   Okay…maybe six months is pushing it, but not more than two years old for sure!  The worst part about this position is the fear I will fart in his face as he pushes my leg toward the back of my head!!!!

I look around the room and there is a younger women who, laying on her back, brings her legs up over her head and reaches back toward the wall with her toes.  I think to myself, “My God what I am doing here?”

The work I do with Dean is not cardio…but it sure makes me sweat.  By the time I walk away from him I am sweating as if I was in a sauna and my face is as red as an apple.  From the outside it looks simple.  At least he makes it look simple.  

“Just stand with your back to the wall, open your arms to your side and your elbows at 90 degrees, hands up in the air….touching the wall with the back of your hands.”  He demonstrates and I think, ah an easy one.  Sure.  I stand with my back against the wall, lift my arms as if I am surrendering to the gunman, push my arms back to touch the wall…pushing…pushing…I can’t touch the damn wall!!!!  

“Don’t worry,” he says.  “You’ll get there, just don’t give up.”

I want you to know that standing in this surrender position and lifting my arms straight up and then back down is very hard for this 68 year old body!  

Balance is my weak spot.  I mean it is so bad that if a policeman pulled me over for a DUI, I would just have to surrender because I could not pass his “stand on one foot and lift the other” test.  I would fall over on my face and he would haul me in!

I'll always love to cook!

And can I ask, why the mirrors?  In this place there are mirrors everywhere.  I don’t even like to look at myself naked in the privacy of my own home and yet here I am in a room full of young sweaty bodies who seem to be able to tie their legs into pretzel holds, unable to move without catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  Do you know how hard it is to try and do these exercises while seeing my “old women’s body” flopping around on the floor?  Most of the time I just close my eyes…and that does not help either!!!

As hard as this is…and it is hard…I will not give up on working to get my strength back into my muscles.  There is so much I want to do and places I want to see, and all require a good deal of walking and hiking and damn it…I am going to do these things!!!  Until then, Lord, please help me preserve my dignity!