Bend, and stretch.

Over recent months, I’ve been feeling an increasingly strong urge to get fit; to stretch, flex and exercise body, spirit and mind. I used to be incredibly athletic; I had to be, to be in the saddle from 5am – 8pm (later in Summer). I used to hike, run, ride, skate. Then I just… stopped. I got depressed, then I got sick, so I stopped. In true Candice style, I’ve procrastinated. My body has forgotten how to move. Every movement feels robotic and stiff, there’s no flow. Not only that, I somehow became reluctant and fearful. This is incredibly unacceptable to me. With great self-awareness comes great responsibility. ;)

There are several reasons for my self-neglect. I could blame my past and the fact that I was so neglected for the first 20 years of my life that the mindset stuck. I could blame my mother for not teaching me how to take care of myself. I could blame the government whose Emergency Care Unit staff didn’t bother teaching me anything either (I was a ward of the state for a very long time). The fact is that it’s my fault. I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions and taking care of myself, and I chose not to do so. Part “I don’t deserve to feel good” mentality, and part laziness. Over the past 7 months, it’s also had a lot to do with wanting to avoid being in the kitchen in order to not have to be near the people who also live in this house. I took to buying things that were fast and easy, that would require minimal preparation and even less cleaning up, thus reducing my time spent inside. 

Watching my current housemate literally decompose without dying has not only disgusted me, but made me all the more determined to get my body and mind into the condition they should be. I don’t want to be in my 70s and be so fucking bitter and sour and malicious that even my own body turns toxic. She feeds herself on food that is quite obviously not fresh, and often sourced from the bins scattered around shopping centers. I’d seen her in action around Oakleigh and Chadstone before she moved in here, and more since. You can always tell when she’s opened her fridge as the house is filled with a pervasive stench of compost from all the vegetables she’s got turning black in there. Never mind the meat, or the milk...

I have inadvertently taken a couple of small steps towards improved health; I noticed that over the past couple of months, I was smoking cigarettes only on weekends, and even then only if I was drinking and was with other smokers. Otherwise, I just didn’t feel like it. I noticed yesterday while wandering around Chadstone that I was breathing quite deeply without having to think about doing so. My throat wasn’t closing up and my lungs weren’t hurting. Almost unheard of for me! (I developed bronchitis when I was 15, and took up smoking not long after. Bronchitis + asthma + extreme lack of fitness = huff and puff.) I didn’t deliberately quit smoking, and I don’t consider myself to be a non-smoker. The fact is, I do enjoy the occasional cigarette. I’m glad that I’ve become less and less of a slave to them, to the point that now it is not an addiction, but a sporadic guilty pleasure. I drink with less frequency, and generally a smaller amount than I used to. I’m drinking for different reasons now. I no longer get drunk out of boredom, or social pressures, or to escape the maelstrom that so often goes on in my head.

While I was already aware of what I put in my body, observing Rosemary’s eating/smoking/gambling habits has really slammed the message home: “Get your shit together, or end up like her.” I can’t keep putting my health (and in turn my daughter’s) last just because it’s unpleasant to be in the house. And here’s the thing – I very much enjoy food, especially when it’s fresh (and often raw). I simply adore getting up early, and being active. Yet I spent the past 7 months just not giving a shit. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I did care, and do, but it wasn’t enough for me to do anything about it. Then Rosemary moved in. Lord, what a vile creature. She’s angry at the world, and everyone owes her. Since she moved in, every single day that she’s home the house radiates negativity and death, sourness and irrational anger. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no interest in denying her the hard-earned right to be a grumpy old coot, there is a big difference between that and the venom that spews forth every time she opens her mouth.  It's just that I don’t want to turn into that. 

My point here isn’t to shit-talk an old woman. My point is that it scares the shit out of me that I could possibly end up like that. I hereby refuse to allow that to happen. I want to be the tattooed old woman with fifty cats and the lines of a million giggles on my face, slamming back pints with friends on a sunny Friday afternoon. I want to be forever lithe and spritely, full of glee and unashamed wildness, no matter my chronological age.

 So here’s to moving more, thinking more, loving more, and laughing more.