Of Birthdays, Flying Without a Net and the Audacity of Hope

 

Hey Kids!

Dig, if you will, this picture:

Tomorrow is my 52nd birthday.

 Holy Crap!


So.... Here are some thoughts on that fun fact:



What a long, strange trip it's been...

I've managed to do some pretty cool stuff in 52 years. I carried and raised some gorgeous, gifted, smart, hilariously funny, and really, really, ridiculously good looking humans. They're happy and successful people in their own right who are now raising their own families in their own creative and spectacular fashion. So there's that.

I've gained and lost fortunes, been fat, been thin, been fit and strong. Won some battles. Learned some excruciatingly hard lessons. Traveled to some amazing and beautiful places on this big blue marble called Earth. Grieved the loss of loved ones. Celebrated the triumphs of others. Fallen in and out of love, or at least infatuation a few times...Fallen on my behind a thousand times and gotten back up when everything in me said "Don't. You can't. It's too hard. Just lie here. You're exhausted. You're alone. You're too scared. Stay down." That voice is a dream slayer. 
And I can't seem to stop dreaming.
So I keep getting up.
Call it an exercise in the audacity of hope.

Adventure in the great wide somewhere...

So here I sit on the edge of 52 looking over into the next phase of my life.
Wondering why I didn't write this sort of thing at 50? That's the big one, right?
Here's why: When I was nineteen, my mother was 52. 
She was 52 when she went into Bryn Mawr Hospital for treatment of cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation and blood clots, developed pneumonia/congestive heart failure and never came out. 
At 52, she transitioned, crossed over, went home, whatever you want to call it.  I watched her die looking into my father's eyes - and life as I knew it changed forever.

So what does that have to do with me at 52? I'm fit, strong, in ridiculously good health, routinely mistaken for ten years younger than I am. How is this relevant? 

See, there's no roadmap from here. I'm winging it. Although, truth be told, I've been flying without a safety net pretty much since that day in October, when I was nineteen and everything changed.  
There's a part of me that's angry with her. 
I know- It's not cool to be mad at the dead, to speak ill of the dead. But the fact remains that there'a a part of me that is flat out angry at her. Because she knew she had a congenital heart disease. She knew. And she smoked. She didn't eat well. She didn't do even the minimal exercise she was allowed, which would have strengthened her and kept her with us. 
 So she checked out at 52, when I was nineteen and I still needed her. 
I still needed her. 


When I was younger I did the same. I smoked, despite watching practically everyone in my family drop dead from heart disease. I ate like crap and comforted myself with food. I didn't take care of me. I was stupid. I was scared and depressed. My kids saved my life a hundred times over just by their very existence. I gained and lost a ton of weight. It wasn't until I was 45 and my granddaughter, Marley looked up at me with her gorgeous eyes that I made a firm decision that I was not checking out. My kids may have missed the grandmother experience, but my grandbabies would not.  I did my first 5k obstacle run at 46.

That's why I'm committed to fitness and helping others achieve their weight loss and fitness goals. That's why I bore you with endless workout and inspiration posts on all of my social media. 
Because it's too important to *not* check out on people who need you. You may not even realize how much they need you. You never know who your smile or kind word is affecting. The lady you chatted up in Costco may have been despairing until you told her how lovely she looked today. The girl at the CVS with the three screaming kids may have felt totally alone until you said, "Boy, do I remember those days- It gets better, I promise." 



So what's next? 
Who knows. 
There's no road-map from here.
Let's wing it. 
Have Adventures. 
Fly without a net.
Love people.
Be present.
You and I are the Ambassadors of the Audacity of Hope.