Pull It Back

It is frustrating to reach the point in life where you can't just do whatever. Maybe it's supposed to happen sooner than when you get to your thirties, as it seems to have for me, or maybe it's a period of time that never ought to have happened, this time of reckless freedom. For much of my life, responsible actions could only be extracted from me virtually at the point of a gun, or at least only under direct supervision.

That's not to say that I was was some kind of feral child. I just couldn't be relied on to do dishes, brush my teeth or complete uninteresting homework without some considerable cajoling. I furthermore have, until recently, been very bad at most of the things meant to ensure my long-term health and even short-term safety. After a lot of hemming and hawing, I did buy a bicycle helmet some time ago, and even more recently learned the value of stretching before riding (in rather dramatic fashion).

I do appreciate the value of proper nutrition these days, and attempt to achieve it as much as my level of knowledge (and limited tolerance of shopping) allow. I'm not sure if I can point to direct benefits of that as yet, although I can say that reigning in reckless activity has probably resulted in the gaining of a few pounds. That's better than courting injury, I suppose, and I remain within the acceptable range of BMI if I understand how that works at all.

I do bemoan the loss of such freedoms as eating like a goat and careening around like a loose cannon on a ship in a storm, but I appreciate that if I manage to stick with it, I will gain the appreciable reward of getting to be an old man with full possession of his mental faculties and full use of his body. I will be sorry if medical (and technological) advancements render my sacrifices unncessary and people who never got responsible roam around as cyborgs the same as me, but we'll just see about that.