Final sprint to the Back Forty...make that a slow jog

When Harry Met Sally is of my quintessential life movies. Like The Big Chill, Talladega Nights, Mommy Dearest, Urban Cowboy...and about a dozen others, lines from that movie pop into my head as i work through this life.

Remember when Sally's ex-fiancee married his transitional person (all this time i was thinking he didn't want to get married when really he just didn't want to marry me) and she cried all night on Harrys' shoulder?
Sally in snotty tears: and i'm gonna be forty!!
Harry: yeah, in like eight years.
Sally bursting into tears: it's just sitting there! waiting!

i feel that. my eight years are up. well, in eight months they are. age is just a number--hey, i know that. have you seen the guys i date? still, 40. it's the biggie. it just sits there. like a fence-gate in the middle of the road.

ENTER OLDNESS HERE

nothing after the forty mile marker will be the same as it was up to that point. maybe it will be better. maybe not. but i'd like to hit that starting line in as peak condition mentally, emotionally and um, physically as possible.

and so our blog begins...

if i get any more out of shape, i'm afraid i'll be declared clinically dead. i never exercise. i mean never ever. walking from my car to the office is the most energy i exert in any typical 24 hour period.

the shrieks of horror from my inner being whenever i pass a mirror (or store window...or any reflective surface) tell me that the time has come. i can't get by with sitting on my ass anymore. my ass is about to crush something. it's time to move this mortal coil around a bit.

yes, this is yet another blog entry
of my attempt to work out
in order to get
better looking . sue me.

i went swimming this weekend. not walking around the pool, swooshing through the water with my head up like what i usually call swimming.
i mean actually performing the strokes. thought i was going to have a stroke.
i can't even call it swimming laps. it was swimming lap.

i've never been athletic. or graceful. or happy about moving. i'm a writer. a reader. a listener. a talker. none of these activities, to which i excel, require me getting out of a chair. and i've come to expect it that way. my only other hobby: drinking, fits well in the "sitting down" category of pasttimes that i've employed these past 5 years.

i will not take up space and time boring you with a list of all the crap i've bought as i've talked about working out. because it's just that: talking about it. intending to get into shape. constructing a plan, but never executing it.
just like so many other things i've intended to do and haven't:
Get my masters.
Start a cooking business.
Take up hoola hooping.
Write a memoir novel.
De-clutter the house.
Accept myself.

the list goes on and on. now time is ticking. i am a writer. i work on deadline. and not a minute sooner. the consumate "best under pressure" kind of person: i work about a week past deadline. so with eight months ahead until i have to blow forty...candles... i figure i'm about a year late in deciding to get started.
for me, seems right on time.

i'm not going to be a hard body. i doubt i'll even be a firm-tofu body. but before i start the second half of my life, i just want to do something i set out to do . being able to swim more than a lap; knowing i'm physically strong; liking the curve of my waist, feeling the quiet approval of my inner voices. seems like a good place to start.

it's God's same mantra to me---dump lazy and do something.
life is what you do. not what you intend to do.

so here i go. no cutesy wrap up.
oh, okay. why not.

the truth is: i can see the ME i have the potential to be--and that's who i want to spend the rest of my life with.
and... when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with a person, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible ...