What is the line between acceptance and resignation? Is there a line?
I do not accept my body. No, wait, that’s not right: It’s my body, and it feels like my body, and some parts are fine and some parts are not, blah blah.
But it is rounder than I would like and I wonder if this is what inevitably happens with age or with the shifting assertion of my Absurd and Beat genes or if this is simply the result of my unwillingness to give up cheese and beer and chocolate or to work out more than I do.
If it is a battle of wills, then my will for my kick-ass home-made peanut butter bars is kicking my will for a taut ass.
I’ve been going to the gym for over two (three?) years and have “progressed”: I am stronger and my muscles have more definition and despite my recent back-induced sabbatical, I’m confident that this trend will continue.
Why the scare quotes for “progress”? Because in this context I’m not sure what it means. Is progress about gaining strength, or staving off decline? Is it about being healthy for my age, or to be healthier than others my age—to be healthy for someone younger than me? Is there some point at which I won’t add be able to add more weight, to increase my speed on the bike or treadmill or loop around the park? Will it be progress simply to be able to do anything at all?
I’d like to run the New York marathon some day, and to do that I will train, with a clear goal in mind (finish within a respectable period of time).
But I’m not now training for that marathon, I’m training for. . . huh: I’m not training at all. I want to look better and feel better even if I don’t know what “better” means, I know that it’s not what I look like now. I’d like to be leaner, tighter: I’d like my discipline apparent in my body.
Ah, and there it is: my discipline is apparent in my body.
*Sigh*
AbsurdBeats 