Apparently is was poet George Bernard Shaw who said that “youth is wasted on the young.” He’s not wrong. I’ve been thinking about just how much I took for granted when I was younger. This is especially true when it comes to my health.
In my defence, I have always trained. I started karate when I was three, got my black belt when I was 11, and my second dan at 15. Then at 16 I discovered the gym and, until the perimenopause hit, was dedicated to continuing an active lifestyle. But that aside, when I was younger, oh man, I took some risks.
Dicing with death
From the time I discovered alcohol at 16, I regularly drank myself stupid. Not only was it dangerous for my body but under the influence, I regularly put myself in precarious situations. When I lived in Tenerife, aged 19, I would walk the streets alone or go back to hotel rooms with random guys.
It gets worse. Between the ages of 18 and 22, I used drugs regularly. My drug of choice was cocaine but I also tried cannabis and experimented with ecstasy. Although over 20 years ago, I can still vividly remember lying in bed in the early hours, heart racing, mind whirring at a million miles an hour, wondering if I was going to have a heart attack.
I can still recall the last time I took an ecstasy tablet. Sat on my boyfriend’s lap in the pub, panicking as it took effect. Bargaining with God to let me live, whilst simultaneously imagining the following day’s newspaper headlines, “local girl dies after taking ecstasy.”
I was wild in other ways too. Not only was I promiscuous, I also never used protection. For years, I was convinced that I had aids, and only got the all clear when I was routinely tested during my pregnancy. That’s quite a weight to carry let me tell you.
From one extreme to another
During my 20s, probably as a way to rehabilitate my reputation, I went to the other extreme. Everything became about being ‘healthy’. I obsessed over everything that I put in my mouth and trained even when I was ill, delighted when I shrunk to under 8 stones. Still, I was never happy with the way I looked. So, not only did I take my health for granted, I took my appearance for granted too. What I’d give now for the toned body of my youth. For the skin of my 20s. Heck, for the skin of my 30s.
Happier and healthier
Oscar Wilde said, “with age comes wisdom.” He is right as well. I am the healthiest I have ever been and I am the happiest I have ever been. I know what is important and I know what isn’t. I’ve watched loved ones lose their lives too young and I’ve been to too many funerals. I’ve had a scare of my own and now, I don’t take my health for granted for a second. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have days when I struggle. I still want to be thinner. I am still shocked by the lines around my eyes or the dimples on my thighs. It is what is, that may never change.
Nowadays, I still often lie in bed in a panic. My heart is racing, my mind is whirring. No longer under the influence of drugs, now I lie awake calculating how many hours of sleep I’m going to get and wondering if it will be enough. These days I count how many different vegetables I’ve eaten in a day rather than the number of calories in food or my weight on a scale.
I want to pass on my hard fought wisdom to my daughter. I see her, shoulders slouched, eyes to the ground, trying to hide herself from the world. She doesn’t see her perfect skin, she doesn’t yet understand the gift of good health. I want to protect her from the pain of the journey from there to here. To provide her with a shortcut. It’s useless, I know, and it would do her a disservice for she needs to find it for herself. I can only hope that she finds it sooner than I did and that her journey is less extreme.
