Sidney from My Lens

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Thursday was my 80th birthday. Yes, people really do live this long. Gobsmack, some even longer.

As I have mentioned before, last November I was doing a personal training session with Jervaughn. Quite a generic workout actually. A little of this, a little of that. I thought I was a really big deal working out in the big boy/girl gym with all these young twenty - thirty muscle bound gym aficionados; rippling biceps as they rather effortlessly curled between 35 and 50 pound weights in each hand. I was on my little bench next to them struggling to lift my 7 ½ to 10 pound weights and trying sooo hard to look like I fit in.

I watched with jaw dropping amazement as the die hards did what appeared to be rather effortless pull ups. I want to insert right now that a pull up is about the hardest exercise there is to execute. I didn’t know that at the time. Looking at them doing pull ups I thought Wow … that’s stunningly amazing! I admit I was being a complete smart ass when I laughingly said to Jervaughn, ‘I bet I could do that.’ I expected him to kindly say something that pull ups were for young people and I would have easily let it go.

But he didn’t. Instead he said, ‘You can do that if you want to.’ And with ignorant bluster, I took the challenge. He said it wouldn’t be easy. What an understatement. For the past year I have worked my ass off to accomplish my goal. And here is the proof of all my grunting, groaning, complaining and despair along with silent stunned amazement when I successfully lifted the next heavier weight on my journey to the mighty pull up. Somehow think of me and the bar as similar to the Moby Dick battle. Ok, maybe not as significant as fighting a whale … but still.

My daughter took this image Thursday on my birthday. Best birthday ever.

Every lift is done with twelve reps and then repeated three times for a total of 36 reps. I do that for a month or more until I can almost lift that weight without begging for mercy. When I’m at that point he says his dreaded phrase, ‘well, looks like it’s time to up those weights.’ I’m thinking, can’t we just stop at this weight and then through magical thinking in another couple of months I’ll just float up to the top of the bar? I know, I know, it doesn’t work that way.

I look around the gym and tell Jervaughn that I want those Arnold Schwarzenegger muscles. Without even a glimmer of a smile he assures me that I could have those. All I would have to do is bring my sleeping bag and move into the gym. I’m probably not going to do that. Even if I did, there really is no unused floor space available. People might not look down and walk on me instead of over me.

In the photo above it’s taking every bit of will power I possess to tell you not to look at this part of my body or that part. Feeling not good enough has been my default all of my life. I work as hard at removing that unwanted negative impression of myself as I do to do a pull up.

After eleven years of weekly therapy, I am finally starting to ‘hear’ what she’s trying to tell me. Letting her words penetrate all of my brick wall defenses has taken as much work as stepping up my weights. When I was small it did not occur to my parents to give me positive feedback. They didn’t give me negative feedback either. I just didn’t get any either way. I was very quiet and rather unseen. They were busy surviving their own lives. I was invisible wallpaper, background noise. I am trying to learn to say good things to myself, about myself, but I tend to resist positive thoughts every step of the way. Never quite good enough.

My daughter brought me a gorgeous bouquet of flowers to celebrate my feat.

Then we all went to dinner at the Majestic. Gary and I eat every week at the Majestic. We invite people from the Y to join us. Not only am I a lot stronger, we also have a lot more friends. Life is pretty damn good.

Accept:

We just learned that my husband’s pancreatic cancer has returned. We thought we had conquered this usually fatal disease six years ago. The five year survival rate is 7%. Having now gone six years we thought we had beaten the odds but pancreatic cancer is a powerful adversary that is too often the winner in the end.

We will meet next week with Dr. Adas, Gary’s oncologist and the surgeon Adas has recommended to see what our next steps will be.

We remain positive. We’ve gone to war before. We can do it again. Until next time.

c