oh hell no

Last Friday I went to the gym. It’d been a forever. Got on the scale and read one hundred forty-frickin’ two.

Unacceptable.

Poor Cody. I went to the pool to meet him. He was dawdling by the edge screwing up the gumption to face the temperature change. (His body doesn’t do well with such fluctuations). I might have said some greeting. I think it was more like a grunt. I jumped past.  I took off. I ignored the tingling left leg. I ignored him. I can do this. Twelve laps.

There is a moment where I’m tired enough to explain. “I am mad. I am angry that my body is not what it was.”

And it’s okay. “You’ll get back to where you feel good about you.” he says.

Bridget says I ought to cut my self some slack. But anger is good fuel sometimes. I’ll use it.

Monday; 14 laps: Tuesday; sixteen. Today will be eighteen.

It’s not a matter of feeling ugly, although I do sometimes. It’s the residue of mortality – a reminder that my body is frail. But no. There is absolutely no reason I can’t be who I was before the stroke. No. Better than who I was.

The muscle is under there, teased into awakening. I am going to be fifty in a few weeks. It will be a strong, pugnacious, glorious fifty. Just watch me.