Whose Body Is This?

For all of us grieving bodies we used to trust.

On a random Wednesday workout class, I did curtsy squats with the group, knowing full well that my knees don’t like them.

So why was I surprised the next day when my left knee felt like someone had stabbed it?

What the fuck. How could another physical thing be happening to my body?

I attend group fitness classes religiously, three times a week. I modify the exercises to accommodate my body. But I’ve made the mistake multiple times of feeling so good that I push myself through an exercise I know I shouldn’t do. Then I end up injured.

I was so angry at myself. When will I ever learn that my 63-year-old body can no longer do what my 30-year-old body could?

I thought I’d already made my peace with the way my aging body was changing.

What I saw in the mirror changed overnight. My face grew wrinkles and sprouted an unwelcome mustache. My eyelids began to droop as my chin grew sagging jowls. And my chicken-skin neck became a daily reminder that sunscreen should have extended well below my face.

And then my waist thickened, every damn pair of pants fit differently, and some of my favorites no longer fit at all. My gray hair grew in coarse and sometimes reminded me of kinky pubic hair.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, menopause decided sleep was optional.

Like most women, I noticed every one of those changes.

At first, I wondered whether my body was still attractive. Then, I found myself wondering whether it was still healthy. Whether it was still capable of supporting the type of lifestyle I wanted.

When I was younger, I lifted weights to look fit and muscular. Now, I started lifting weights to build stronger bones. I began eating healthier, not because I wanted to squeeze into smaller jeans, but because I wanted more healthy years.

Then life forced me to stop taking my body for granted.

I herniated a disc in my back and needed surgery. Recovery took almost nine months. I was frustrated, discouraged, and honestly, a little scared. I’d always identified as an athlete, and I wasn’t sure if that part of my life was over.

The first day I was finally cleared to go back to the gym, I walked into the group fitness room, sat down on the wooden floor, and cried. I’d missed feeling strong. I’d missed my gym friends. I’d missed feeling at home inside my own body.

That was the moment I realized something had shifted. Somewhere along the way, preserving my body had become more important than perfecting it.

A year later, I fell on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. And then I fell again on the way back to bed. I crawled on the tile floor back to bed and lay there for two hours with a splitting headache, trying to gut it out. I didn’t wake my husband, who had slept through the entire thing. Then I went to work the next morning and saw clients all day.

I stopped by the ER on the way home because we were heading to the mountains the next day and I was worried a concussion and high altitude might be a bad combination. They did a CT scan and admitted me overnight, convinced I’d had a stroke. An MRI at 1 AM showed I hadn’t. My mom died from a sudden brain bleed, preceded by some mini-strokes, and part of me worries I’ll follow her path. Even after wearing a heart monitor the following month, nobody ever confirmed what caused me to fall.

I still don’t know.

Then I injured myself again.

I fell playing pickleball and shattered my right wrist. It was my dominant hand, and the injury was brutal. It took three surgeries, a plate, and nine screws to put it back together. During those first couple of weeks, even touching the screen on my phone with my index finger was agonizing.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t just worried about recovering from an injury. I was worried about what it might mean for the rest of my life.

Did I ruin my already arthritic hand? Would I always be afraid of falling? Would I play pickleball again? Would I stop doing the things I loved because my body couldn’t keep up anymore?

I worked hard in physical therapy to recover from my broken wrist, determined to return to the activities I love. And in the process of recovering, my mindset about my body shifted.

I stopped thinking so much about how my body looked and started appreciating everything it allowed me to do.

These days I lift weights because I want strong bones, not because I want toned arms. I eat healthy because I want more healthy years, not because I want to be thinner. I move my body every day because I want to keep gardening, walking my dog, traveling, chasing my grandkids around the yard, and playing pickleball with my friends.

Which brings me back to my knee.

The frustration is endless. I miss having a body I can rely on. What I care about most is losing my body’s ability to do the things I want it to do.

Because this scares me. What happens if I fall playing pickleball again? Or on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night?

I’m grieving my fading athletic ability. I’m frustrated because I no longer move fast enough, and my processing speed is slower, so my reaction time has plummeted. And recently, I started missing shots and discovered I need cataract surgery.

Sometimes, I feel like I’ve woken up in a different body. I’m stiff and sore in new places. I get leg cramps. I need to take my time getting out of bed. I wonder whose body is this? When did my young reliable body get replaced by the body of an old woman?

I should have known all of this was coming because my husband is older than me.

Two months ago, he tore his meniscus doing a random, everyday activity, like getting up from the couch. We don’t even know when it happened. Now he’s waiting for a knee replacement because he has severe arthritis in his knee.

Watching him move his body in absolute pain is agonizing because he’s a man who never complains about anything. When I ask him about his knee, he says it really hurts. I catch him falling asleep midday because the chronic pain is exhausting. I watch him move slowly through the house, and my heart breaks to see how much this injury appears to be aging him.

And that scares the absolute shit out of me. Not just for him. For myself. Not because I’ll have to take care of him if this injury goes south, but because I’m worried about being in the same exact position 10 or 20 years from now.

I don’t know if I can handle a declining body. Because it’s not just my body I’d be losing. It’s who I am.

What part of yourself are you most afraid of losing? Or what have you lost that you miss? I’d love to hear from you in the comments. And PS - I read them all and try to respond to as many as I can.

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