“20 years from now, you’d give anything to be this exact age, exactly this healthy, in this exact moment.”
Richard Webster
I read this quote the other day and it resonated. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have looked back on pictures of my younger self and wondered why, at the time, I could never see how great I looked. I’m sure that most women can relate. At 30, I remembered my 21 year old figure with envy. Then at 40, I longed for the tone and elasticity I had in the previous decade.
A lifetime of conditioning
Maybe it’s an age thing, but at 45, I finally feel like I am letting go of the need to be skinny. Which, if I am being honest, is the one thing that I have strived for my entire life. I have written in the past about the realisation that my relationship with my body was way worse than I thought. And since then, I have done a lot of work to rectify this. Yes, I have educated myself on which foods most benefit me with the help of Zoe, but it goes deeper than that. I have had to completely change the way that I think about my body.
While that old conditioning is still buried deep inside of me, I have learned to resist the compulsion to starve and punish. I have fought hard to no longer equate my worth to a number on a scale. And I have refused to return to those old patterns even when it has felt like the whole world has encouraged me otherwise. This has gotten me to a place where, for the most part, my focus is on the health and functionality of my body rather than the aesthetics.
Warning signs
My grandma is 87 years old. She in pain from the moment she wakes up in the morning, until the moment she goes to bed. My mum, in her early 60s, is already feeling the effects of arthritis. Watching them suffer, to varying degrees, has reinforced the realisation that my health cannot be taken for granted. That in 10 or 20 years time, I am going to look back in wonder at my current body. And that, while I may appreciate how it looked, it is the freedom that it gave me that I will miss the most.
Currently, I can hop and jump and twist and climb. I can do yoga and walk in the woods and stand on one leg while I tie my shoelaces. Touching my toes and squatting are not an issue. Nor is beating my 13-year-old in a running race (barely). I can still carry heavy shopping bags and I’m like lightening when my husband chases me up the stairs, his threat to poke up up the bum all the fuel I need. I feel present in my body, in a way that I never have been before.
But, I also have some niggles. Backache, clicky knees, tension headaches. Some of this is to be expected as I age, but I don’t doubt that some of it is self-induced. The years of over-training, of refusing to stretch, of ignoring my body’s warnings.
Future proofing my body
Future me can either look back at this time with regret, or with appreciation. Regret that I left my body depleted and frail. Or, appreciation that I adequately prepared it to support me in my later years. How that looks for me, will be different to how it looks for other women. There is no one size fits all. Besides, the how is not the point here. For me, it’s about the why. It’s about finding a purpose and then moving toward it in a way that feels right. It’s about listening to my body and then honouring it. It’s about drowning out the outside world and following my own path.
Of course, none of us know what is around the corner. I’ve lost loved ones before their time; I’m aware that there are no guarantees. But, if I am lucky enough to see old age, I want to be able to live into every inch of it. For that, I’m going to need a willing and able body. And that is my why.
