Things About Jack

Every so often I read about the legendary physical exploits of the Tarahumara Indians. They are an indigenous people in Mexico who are known for being able to run long distances. One of the stories that is told about them involves the Olympics.

Two of the tribesmen were entered into the Olympic marathon and were thought to be among the favorites to win the race. As it worked out they were among the last to finish the event. However it wasn’t because they were tired or out of shape, but because no one had told them how long the race was. They had assumed it was going to be much longer and complained that the race was too short.

To me that is impressive. When you look at 26 miles and consider it to be a warm up you know that you are in excellent shape.

I have been thinking about running. When I turned 37 I went for a physical and was told by the doctor that my knees are arthritic and that I shouldn’t do exercises that provide undue stress on them. According to him ignoring that advice would lead to a knee replacement somewhere around the time I turn 50.

He also told me that overall my health was good, but that I needed to lose some weight. According to him that would provide some immediate benefits as well as long term. Good preventative maintenance.

I ignored his advice about playing basketball and running. I love to play ball. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is one of the simple pleasures in life. I never get tired of playing and when I don’t I get cranky.

Add to the mix that when I play regularly it increases my ability to lose weight and you can see why I didn’t like what he had to say. Oh, and did I mention that my knees don’t hurt. I don’t feel any sort of regular pain in them. Occasionally it happens, but that is usually tied into walking six or seven flights of stairs.

Anyway, I can accept that aging forces some changes upon us. I know that physically there are some things that are harder to do, but that doesn’t mean that I am incapacitated nor does it mean that the doc’s opinion is completely accurate.

Part of what made me think about all of this stems from a race I had with my son and some friends of his.

I won.

Sad, isn’t it that a 40 year-old man is gloating about beating a bunch of kids in a sprint. But I needed that. I needed to push myself. I needed to hear the wind rushing in my ears. It has been a while since I made the body move like that. It felt good.

We raced a few more times and I won again and again. Tried to convince some of the other fathers to join in but they didn’t.

I need to find someone who will. I need to find someone faster than I am. Not so fast that it is impossible to beat them, but fast enough that I know that I have to try.

Those Indians run and run and run their entire lives. They prove that some of our thoughts/beliefs about when our bodies begin to fail are not entirely accurate. They prove that there are things that can be done to stave off time.

And that is what I am doing. I don’t care about the wrinkles or lines that are gradually appearing. Don’t care too much about the hair and its migration. Just give me the ability to keep playing, to keep moving and I’ll do the rest.

It is not too much to ask for.

In the early days of the blog when it was new and fresh I had complete anonymity. It provided a cloak that I could hide behind so that I could give voice to the things that troubled me. I spent a lot of time looking in the dark corners of my mind so that I could ferret out the demons and give names to the things that troubled me.

Anonymity provided the freedom to lay out those fears and to bare my soul in a way that I had been unwilling to do. But it was a crutch that helped to mask another fear, the fear of exposure. The fear that presenting myself as a thinking and feeling human with a real name would somehow harm me.

There is merit in that fear because there are those out there who prey upon our weaknesses and try to use them to wound us. Time has taught me the bitter lesson of the truth of those words. I bear the scars of the attempts that have been made to hurt me.

At times I look in the mirror and I see the impact of the past staring back at me. Moments that once haunted me occasionally are dislodged by the present and dredged to the surface. Cloaked in bravado I have roared in anger and shame and fought to stuff them back down. Bitter tears of anger and frustration spent on people and things that didn’t deserve the attention, didn’t merit that power.

The advantage of age and life experience has helped to make it easier to face them. And in many cases they have lost all power, any hold that they once had is gone. That has made it all easier and has served as a positive reminder that the practices I espouse and the values that I hold dear are worthwhile and effective.

But still there are those demons that never go away. Their voices are never completely silenced. Sometimes the whispers increase in volume and the silence of my life is pierced by murmurs that grow into loud shrieks and I am forced to confront it all.

And so I find myself immersed in a struggle, really many struggles. The battles never quite end because the war is never won. If you choose to stand you have to face the reality that some will always try to pull you back down into the mud.

The blog helps. It is of tremendous value. It provides a framework and a structure that I can use to build the foundation of support. It is the tool that I use to dig myself out from under the muck, to clear the wreckage. And from within that I find the things that I need.

Still, the title of this post is called Facing My Fear and I am just now getting to the place in which I am prepared to do that. It has taken time for me to be ready to confront a few things. And so the grand dance is beginning.

If you think in graphic images as I do then perhaps you understand a bit about why I choose to describe things as I do. Perhaps you understand why I write about riding off into battle, talk about the blood lust and the primal scream. I seek that which I fear because I fear anticipation of what could happen more.

Better to hear the clink and clanking of battle than to sit and wait for it. Dance so that you avoid the fire or take the risk of the house burning down around you.

Game on.

A few minutes before midnight I sat down in a dark room and thought about the events of the past day. The last vestiges of my birthday were slipping away. It wasn’t just any birthday, it was my fortieth.

Forty years of wandering the earth trying to figure out what the hell am I doing here had led to this very moment. As a responsible blogger I thought that it was incumbent upon me to share the distilled wisdom of the ages with my readers, present and future.

So I ambled over to the computer and began to write a rambling and garbled post that never quite got its legs beneath it. It took all of thirty seconds to decide that I didn’t want to run it and I deleted it.

I had intended to take another shot at it last night, but after the Mother’s Day marathon I just didn’t have it in me. Wife, mother, mother-in-law, sisters who are mothers and a mother of day sucked the life out of me.

But you my lucky reader had nothing to worry about because here I am writing this post now. It is better, tastier and contains all sorts of healthy nutrients that will make you grow up to be big and strong.

Forty doesn’t feel all that much different to me, age is a number. I won’t lie and say that I am in better shape now than I was at twenty.

At twenty I was a beast. That is not hyperbole. My body fat was somewhere around 9%. I could curl 150, bench press over 300 and I could run for as long as I needed to without fear of how my back or knees would feel later.

Back then I had the benefit of not being responsible for anyone or anything besides myself. I rarely missed a day at the gym and when I was there it was for several hours at a time. On a side note I would have loved being able to use my iPod. It is so much more convenient than that huge walkman I had strapped to my arm.

Ok, so we have established that physically I am not in the shape that I was then. That is not great, but it is not the end of the world either. Mentally/emotionally I am a million times tougher than I was then and that is worth a lot. Life doesn’t always work out the way that you think it will and you need to have some steel in your guts to help you through the rough moments.

A dear friend called to wish me a happy birthday as well as to tease me about my advanced age, in a month I’ll return the favor. During our conversation he told me that he thinks that I know more people who have died young than anyone else he knows.

He is probably right, but I wish that he wasn’t. I can run off a list of around 16 names of friends and people that I knew in passing that died from cancer, drunk driving, bike accident and two suicides.

It is only logical to assume that the older we get the more likely it is that we’ll have these stories to share. But I am not part of the clergy and not in a profession where I have more exposure to this part of life so I suspect that I probably do know more than most.

It has had an impact upon me and lately I am feeling the effects more than in the past. I am far more focused on trying to spend time with the people who are important to me and to do those things that I have always wanted to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t any reason to believe that I am dying now or that I will do so for many years to come. My paternal grandfather lived to be 92 and I am grateful to still have my maternal grandparents, 95 and counting. In fact to quote my paternal grandfather, I intend to defenestrate death.

In more colorful terms, when death comes I am going to kick him in the balls, poke him in the eyes and then throw his bony ass out the window headfirst. I have got far too much to do.

Anyway, as I sat there in the dark I smiled and thought about all the good things in my life because there is a lot. But it was a bit of a bittersweet smile, because even though I have much to be thankful for there are challenges.

Challenges that make me shake my head and question whether I have accomplished enough for someone my age because sometimes I wonder.

That twenty year old I referred to would have laughed at the old man. It would have started as a deep rumble in his chest and erupted into gales of laughter. And then the old man would have used him to mop the floor. I may not be in the same shape, but I am a hell of a lot meaner and far more cunning.

On a serious note, at twenty I had no clue about so many things. Life was simpler then and that has its benefits. On a Saturday night my girlfriend and I would have kept busy until just before dawn, or I would have been out with the boys, until just before dawn.

I am still a nightowl, but given the presence of little people in the house I pay more attention to my hours. I am sure that my fellow parents appreciate that. The kids love to be up early, regardless of how much or how little sleep I have had.

So here I am, the forty year-old man at the computer, now what. Stay tuned and maybe I’ll answer that question.

Another year has come and gone and I have another notch to add to my belt. My thirties have ended and I have entered that decade known as the forties. I stare at my reflection and mutter inconceivable.

The face looking back at me is familiar, yet different. There are lines and creases that are starting to display themselves on a full time basis. The twinkle in my eyes is still there, but there is something else there too.

Life experience has bestowed upon me a certain sort of wisdom that has left a combination of concern and ambivalence that I am trying to sort out. I unsettled. There are things going on that just don’t do it for me. I am unfulfilled and in search of things that make me happier.

I feel the pressure of time to make some changes sooner than later. I have seen too much. I have watched relationships crumble and been to the funeral of more than one friend. Those experiences serve as life lessons that I look at as signposts and roadmaps that I intend to use.

There are many good things in my life that I am thankful for but I don’t have the same feelings/tolerance for those that aren’t adding value. You can’t ever remove all of the negative influences and elements from your life, but you can minimize them. You don’t have to give them free reign.

So I stand here taking inventory and doing all that I can to be the master of my domain. If you ask me what life is going to look like in five years I’ll tell you that I haven’t got a clue. Ok, I have a few ideas, but there are so many variables, so many unknowns that it is tough to give a good answer.

I have to admit that I kind of appreciate not knowing what is going to happen. There is something kind of exciting about it all. And I should add that it is not like I am not going to try and influence things. I have my thoughts and ideas about what I want to see happen. I suppose that the blog will be a good tool for chronicling it all.

Stick around and see what happens.