WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? When Your Latest Photos Don't Fit the Picture

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by Lesly Juarez on Unsplash

The cost of hanging on to what we are no longer

Ahhh, guilty as charged.

I’ll bet you can relate: Every one of us has a photo of ourselves when we looked our absolute best. Doesn’t matter the age or life conditions. It’s just our appearance I’m addressing.

That day you reached Your Number after a long battle with excess weight.

That day you competed at your local bodybuilding contest (a body that you really will never have again).

That day you won…well, whatever lottery or contest that was so important.

You looked like the best you possible, and that became the you that you identified with.

Somehow that photo, that image became locked in, and anything that didn’t validate that going further couldn’t possibly be you.

Until you get that irrefutable evidence, anyway.

Here’s what I mean.

Nine years ago I had a photographer take professional shots of me for my business and for fun. I also had some shots taken of me at my high school reunion, a party that marked just how different the arc of my life was from my former classmates.

My favorite photo from 2017

I was in the best shape of my life at 64, a lifelong bodybuilder. I had a waist, a six pack, tiny hips, powerful arms. I’ve been lifting since I was twenty, and my body showed the effort and commitment.

Of course I assumed, given my work ethic, that I’d always look like that.

Ohfercryingoutloud.

Life, however, intervened. Too many serious injuries from my sports, a horrible relationship that did emotional damage, fourteen surgeries and all the attendant recovery time since 2018.

My body changed.

I don’t blame all of my body’s changes on aging. What I do know is that what we blame on age and time are largely because our habits changed.

We eat differently, sometimes too much. When our bodies don’t need all those calories, and we stop moving as much, we look it.

The body looks like our habits. So did mine.

Part of us knows this is going on. After all, we take baths and showers, there are mirrors. But our self-image, that part of us we hold in protective wrapping, holds closely to a time when we really did look pretty terrific by our standards.

Denial is a fine thing.

For a while anyway.

Yeah, I wish I still looked like this. Nine years ago and counting.

So the other day when my buddy JC requested a profile photo, I didn’t send him the ones that I so identify with from nine years ago.

Grow up, I thought.

For crying out loud. Those are nearly a decade old.

I’d gone to a local photographer who’d spent an hour doing a shoot. She and I didn’t get along. That’s a death sentence for a photo shoot. Smiles are forced. Your grin looks like a death grip.

When I got the disc I wasn’t happy. But I sent them to JC anyway.

Two days later he sent me two photos.

I was stunned.

WHEN THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?

I’d forgotten that I failed to put on makeup for the shoot. Hell, the last time I used mascara was ten years ago, so when I open the wand now all the mascara falls out in tiny black flakes.

Note to self: put on makeup for a photo shoot or look like the Walking Dead.

Second, and don’t we all know it, the camera adds ten pounds. In addition to those I had added, the effect wasn’t particularly kind to my ego.

When did that happen?

Step by step, day by day, minute by minute. As we change what we do and how we live, our bodies reflect those changes.

I’d tried to reboot my workout routine often in those seven years, only to undergo yet another surgery which sidelined me for months. I’ve dealt with constant, sometimes debilitating pain, which often made movement difficult, since the worst of it was in my feet.

Life is just life. Workouts were sporadic. I ate well but more than I used to.

Sometimes we do that when we are in pain, whether it’s depression or physical pain or both.

Weight would go up, then go down. Then another surgery, and it would go up again.

I spent untold hours curled over my feet, massaging, working the bones, trying to ease the pain and regain usage. As a result I curved my spine, and lost height in a way I didn’t expect.

It’s not permanent, but will take work to correct.

Bet you can relate. For many of us our middles expand, with or without exercise, along with all the other obvious physical signs of aging. We may slump, we may slouch.

With that our spines take on more work in a bad position, and that means back pain.

Constant recovery had me sitting far more because I couldn’t walk, hike, bike or do much of anything that required healthy feet.

Shortly afterwards, and not without a fair bit of laughter, my friend Melissa and I were discussing this. She’s 69 this year, and recently had her own photos taken done to launch a new website for her Thai massage business.

She’d had precisely the same reaction.

A dear friend of mine, a very handsome TV producer, reported that when he saw photos of himself in his seventies, Daniel honestly didn’t recognize the person.

I know the photo he loves best; I have it. He’s young, forever handsome. Movie-star handsome.

His response was, “who is that little old man?” To which his friends said, laughing, you.

It’s hard to release that image.

My friend Shannon, now closing in on sixty, competed in a body building contest almost six years ago. Here she is in the center, about 54:

Shannon will tell you that shortly after the show, when the body gets the food and water it so desperately needs, this look disappears immediately. After all that work, too.

Many professional bodybuilders suffer terrible depression because it’s impossible to maintain this look. Doing so will kill you off swiftly, as will any crazy diet.

These days, Shannon is at peace with a touch of fluff, just like I am, and we are likely healthier for it.

That said, my bet is that every so often she revisits this look, just like I like remembering what I had worked so hard to build.

None of us gets to keep the body we have. Not ever. The Great Arnold has openly criticized his aging body. What did he expect?

In the hour that I spent with the photographer, this much I will give her: she kept taking photos. As a result, she caught me in the middle of a genuine guffaw.

That laugh captured what wrinkles can’t take away: what lives inside me.

This is the new photo:

I’m shorter, more wrinkled, greyer and thicker through the middle.

My friend Daniel is shorter, his hair no longer bright blonde.

Shannon isn’t as slim and certainly not as cut as on show day.

Melissa’s hair is pure white these days.

None of us gets to keep that moment. But we do get to maintain what is most important : our strength, flexibility, our cardiovascular health.

Above all, maintain the muscle of our humor, our joy, our gratitude and perspective.

The best part of life is right now, not back then. Because it’s not about how we look so much as how we feel, and how we embrace the life we are given.

It’s so very tempting to believe that back then we were in our prime. I heartily disagree. Right NOW is prime time. Why?

We’re alive, still kicking. With the benefit of more years, knowledge, perspective, wisdom.

Right here, right now is always prime time.

Yeah, I’d love that waist back. But I wouldn’t trade the years in-between for anything. I’m happy to be 73.

The wrinkles?

I’ve earned ‘em.

So have you.

Let’s play.

Thank you to my steady readers. I’ve had a godawful super cold for the last three weeks and am still working on repacking some 200 boxes. That said, the surgical boot is off and is getting donated to Goodwill this weekend. No more surgeries. My god…time to plan a brand new life.

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