Getting Old

Beastocity: 5.5

(Refresher: Beastocity refers to the rate of change of something in my life over a certain period of time. In this example I gave myself a 5.5 because while I’ve noticed myself getting older (duh) I’ve been slowly realizing the effects of aging. If I woke up and was suddenly 45 then I would give myself a Beastocity rating of 347. Make sense?)

So back to me getting old… Let me explain before you write off my 23 year old self. I’ve always had this adventurous mentality where I think I can physically do just about anything. When I was growing up I would run around and climb trees barefoot, race friends until I was dangerously wheezing, and dive off the tops of boats. When I was only a year old I even hijacked my sister’s tricycle and went zooming down the face of a hill. What’s the worst that could happen? (Well in that last scenario I ended up with stitches…) As I’ve gotten older this has usually manifest itself in lifting things. I have this idea that I could lift just about anything within reason. In high school I used to entertain my friends by picking them up and spinning them around. Although I realized that this didn’t always work when I tried picking up one of my friends on the football team.

However, recently I’ve noticed that those kinds of stunts don’t really work anymore. At first it started with a sore back here and there after lifting things incorrectly and more recently it’s evolved into bruises. A few months ago I squeezed my arm through a tiny little crevice in our office copy machine to retrieve a paint brush (long story…) and my reasoning went something along the lines of “If my arm can squeeze through here than it will fit and if it doesn’t fit then it just won’t! What’s the worst that could happen? It’s just my arm…” Needless to say an hour later after the paint brush had been returned safely to its home my forearm was bright red and sore for about a week.

You thought I would have learned my lesson then but just yesterday I found myself with my arm squeezed into a post office mailbox on the side of Wilshire Boulevard trying to retrieve a stuck envelope. It must have been quite a sight to the hundreds driving by to see a girl with her arm halfway into the blue metal mailbox in the middle of the day. After smashing both arms into the mailbox and having no luck getting the envelope I returned to my desk with fresh bruises on each arm.

Now only if I could blame my lack of postings on my blog from old age…