I have come to the conclusion that I am no longer "young." I am by no means "old," but I can no longer claim to be "in my youth." I know I will meet opposition to this statement, especially from those who are beyond 35, my current age. However, I am not basing my claim on the calendar, and I agree that in terms of chronological thinking, 35 is still "young." However, my body and more specifically, its behavior in recent moons, have come to make it clear that I am nowhere near as young as I used to be. As I write this, I am sitting at my computer straining my eyes, tearing up, and feeling a tremendous throbbing on my brain because my sinuses are wreaking havoc on me. This is nothing new for me, as I have gotten used to getting sick in recent years - especially in the past year. It seems that I have become much more susceptible to illness of late. I can't push myself the way I used to without consequence - my body has made it clear to me that after 30+ years, it has had enough of that behavior, and it will from time to time force a complete shutdown.
Now, not to give ammo to all the devil's advocates out there, it needs to be said that the past few years have been pretty rough. I began teaching, started going for my Master's, commuted 2-4 hours each way for about 1-1/2 years, moved to NY, watched my father die... yes, a rough few years (Note: it may seem as if I have "glossed over" the experiences of the past few years, especially my father's death. Well, yes, I have. I did initially write out the entire story, and let me say - it went on for about 5 paragraphs, becoming a blog unto its own. So, in the name of brevity, I chose the "cliff's notes" version. I'm confident that you will see the inherent stresses involved in each of the named experiences without my colorful extended-commentary).
So, here I am in 2007, and for the past year or so I have gotten sick with more frequency than ever before. My sinuses have become my enemy, when in the 30+ previous years, they hardly ever gave me a peep; I've begin getting earaches - something I avoided my entire life until now; and my digestive system now goes to extremes (leading to my first ever colonoscopy and endoscopy this past month). Sure, most of this can be traced back to the craziness of the past few years, especially the last year with my father's death and all, but I can't help but feel that at a younger age my body would have stood up against all this. I've faced tough times before, to equal extremes as those mentioned above, and I've always had the ability to maintain my composure (and health) through times of stress. However, I've come to realize that I now have a "limit," and that is a tough realization for me to take.
