Day: November 26, 2021

I feel physically weak. I feel it in my arms. I lack the power relative to my size. This is a dark revelation. On the near side of 50 I need to get right before I cannot.

50. Jesus that’s old. I didn’t recognize how old I was until this moment. My kids talk about 30 as washed up and I left that behind two decades ago. Last nights turkey bowl found me out of gas incredibly fast and that too is a sign that this old heart doesn’t work so good under duress. I need to stop thinking like a 12 year old and start preparing for the next half of my life by getting my health right. While my eating habits have improved, my physical stamina and physical training regimens is non existent. I need to do more than walk at this point. I need to hit that 50 before it hits me.

tough task to be sure, but the first step is acceptance. I accept that I am old. Now, what the hell do we do about it?

I have a great deal to be thankful for in my life. This existence is imperfect. I don’t expect perfection but I expect to find things worth living for and I am thankful that I have found that in the people I love and fill my life with. Old friends have drifted back into my life’s path and I will do what is in my power to maintain those friendships. I am thankful for what they have meant to me. I am thankful for having had a childhood that wasn’t worse than what it was. I could’ve had things much worse. I may have never escaped Harlem under different circumstances. I am thankful for the man I was fortunate enough to call father for 12 years before he passed on. I still remember how I thought he just went away and if I was lucky I’d see him again one day. Maybe that is true in some sense.

I am thankful for the love I share with the beautiful woman I hold in my arms each night. I was fortunate enough to find lasting love twice in my life. The first one failed and I take responsibility for that. I played a large part in that failure. I gave up. I don’t regret that. I am thankful that the marriage brought me three wonderful kids as this new partnership has brought me three more. I’m lucky in so many ways in my life and I need to do more to show the people closest to me that I recognize that luck and see them as a benefit and not a burden.

I am thankful I’ve been able to keep this blog going so long. One true failed day in several thousand means I’ve done pretty good so far. I’ve been at this for a decade and I think it is natural to continue and thus unnatural to stop–even when the words don’t want to come. Once upon a time I used to tell stories in bed. I would dream up characters and talk about their lives. These stories came from that place of stories I was once linked to. Lately I’ve begun to feel that the connection to that place is possible to restore. I am thankful for belief, for without it I would not know how to proceed.

I am thankful for my health and my mind. I don’t remember as many things as I should, and I am sloth for the most part, but I still have the ability to change that. Not everyone does. I’m lucky for that ability as well. I lack motivation on a molecular scale, but I am working to change that. I’m thankful this too is possible.