Day 164 and 165

From Slow Mo to Low Mo to No Mo.  The story of the Poet, the Artist and the Bodybuilder.

Today has been a serious downer.  Up at 3 am to deliver our visitors to the airport took its toll on my motivation level in a serious way.  I had grand plans for the day, but couldn’t seem to find the energy to see them through to fruition.  I am on a new crusade.  In the past six months I have managed to renovate my life so to speak.  I have soothed my soul and explored my artistic side through various endeavors.  My psyche is in good health and I find myself in need to complete the transformation from working stiff to enlightened man.  I have convinced my wife to embark on this new adventure with me.  The last goal necessary to complete my happiness hat trick is to improve upon my already reasonable physical fitness.  It has always been a goal of mine to once in my life exhibit the level of physical fitness I know that I am capabale of obtaining.  I have been on this road many times before.  I suffer from the same illness that most of us suffer from.  The self destructive nature of our lives always finds a way to derail us from our physical fitness goals.  Extended Holidays filled with Turkey and stuffing.  Long road trips full of fast food and convenience store fair.  You name it, life has a way of intruding on the truly monastic lifestyle that is necessary to reach ones optimal level of physical fitness.  I have flirted with this in the past and besides life’s intervention, a fair part of my failures have been due to my general weakness of mind.  The ease with which we live a life of convenience makes it quite difficult to make the right decision and eat that which you must and drag your carcass to the gym when every fiber of your being says to keep you fat ass on the couch.  In recent years I have never been too over indulgent with my dietary regime and have vowed never to get back to the 200+ pounds I once was.  I have managed this with relative ease, but going that last ¼ mile in the name of vanity has always eluded me.  With my mental health in good order and strength of conviction on my side, I have set a goal and for once in my life am going to see it through to the end.  Will this mean 6 pack abs and an ass of steal?  Who knows.  All I want out of it is to honestly say that at age 37 (too close to 40 for confort) I was in the best shape of my life.  If I can maintain that for a few years, all the better.  The reality of it is that the body eventually betrays us.  We all know the signs.  Aching muscles and joints that didn’t used to hurt after a short hike.  The continued deterioration of our vision and hearing.  The all too familiar loss of ones hair.  I can honestly tell you that for me this downward spiral began at age 28.  For nearly 10 years now, I have been in stasis.  Fighting a battle with gravity and the sands of time.

None of us can be so naïve to believe we can beat father time and turn back to the clock to younger days.  If I could, I would have certainly gone back and told the younger version of myself to live healthier and take the necessary measures to ensure lasting wellness.  I am at an age where my energy is still high and I have as much strength as I will ever have.  It is time to renovate the exterior to match the interior.  I told my wife that my long term goal is as follows:  Get into good shape and deny myself the pleasures of rich food, caffeine and nicotine for the next decade or so, and then at the age of 60 begin eating nothing but Burger King, chain smoking Marlboros while chewing tobacco, nicotine gum and wearing enough nicotine patches to cover a battleship . . . twice, all the while keeping myself on a continuous caffeine drip.  Once I have fattened myself to the point of immobilization, I will begin my new career.  I will take my van to the mall and park in the first available handicapped spot so that I can unload my Rascal or Hoveround in comfort.  I will enter the mall’s climate controlled oasis in a velvet track suit and Walmart brand shoes to complete a couple of hot laps before I commence to openly shoplift items from every retailer I come across.  If caught, I will simply act as though I have Dementia.  Nobody fucks with an old man raving about shit you can’t see while on supplemental oxygen with a lit cigarette in a non-smoking restaurant.  If they push too hard and insist on hauling me to the station, I will simply fill my Depends undergarments with such an unspeakable mélange, that they won’t want to come within 500 yards of me.  After I have loaded the basket on my Rascal with stolen goods, I will head back for the van to negotiate my way out of the parking garage, hitting every car I pass on my way back home.  Back at home I will spend my hours befriending stray animals, watching mail order pornography and decorating my house with enough Christmas lights to be seen from space.  Once the house if filled to capacity with my ill gotten gains, I will simply start leaving shit in the front yard to deteriorate under the harshness of long summers and even longer winters.  When my animal companions die, they will live in immortality through taxidermy.  When I finally die of a massive stroke or house fire, they will likely only remember the negative.  They will remember the disgusting fat bald bastard that lived at the end of the road.  Smoking and screaming profanities at the neighbor children as they pass.  The only thing left of the golden part of my life will be this written work.  Something my children can look back upon with pride in the knowledge that once upon a time, their old man was the best he could ever be, Mind, Body and Soul.  If it only last for one day, that is perhaps more than most see in an entire lifetime.

Maybe these observations and my recent search for the meaning of life are simply the telltale signs of a midlife crisis or maybe I have finally figured it all out after all these year of trial and error.  Either way, I believe all of these goals to be attainable with just a modicum of effort.  We all have to have dreams, and if I am to truly fulfill my Personal Legend, I must now follow mine.  Take care for now.  R.