Middle-aged thoughts…

My body wakes up naturally.

I open my eyes and see his phone posted on its charger…4:30 a.m.

This same body is also conditioned to need the extra nine minutes as a result of years of slinging my hand down on the snooze button of the now absent 1990s rectangular GE digital clock radio he brought to our marriage decades ago.

Stepping onto the scale, it’s confirmed I’ve plateaued at a high point. Zero sugar intake yesterday for nothing?

These days, the 5 a.m. workouts are standing meetings…the appointment I have with myself five times a week.

I take my pre-workout mixture and electrolytes like a shot of whiskey before sliding into my sneakers and out the door.

Looking up, I notice the full moon. Great.

I don’t love full moons…the energy they bring is unsettling to me. Maybe it’s because it signifies the waning phase. Maybe it’s because it makes the ocean tides higher. Maybe it’s because today’s version of me is a planner and doesn’t like maybes.

Logging into the treadmill, I talk to my body, ‘Come on ole girl…you can do this…don’t fall off…how dizzy are you today?’

Being honest with myself, I know my speed is declining. I know the old me is beating the new me. This is a truth I struggle with.

Halfway into my class I say hello to another client and ask her how she is. ‘Not good. I’m getting a divorce,’ she replies.

My heart sinks and I shift my mind from what I expected to be a casual hello to the need for an appropriate response to her life altering news. I don’t know what to say. My fresh endorphins are confused as sympathy envelops me.

Gone are the days of invitations to bachelorette parties, weddings, baby showers…I am in the divorce era.

Leaving the gym, the sun seems slow to rise as the fall days settle into their season and I am reminded that not only will the sun rise slower, it will also set faster in the months to come. Seasonal depression will soon couple itself with my newfound anxiousness.

I dig deep into my inner thoughts, breathe in the new day and embrace the gift that it is…even if it’s raining again.

There’s a whole version of me that just can’t seem to show up without conscious effort these days. And when I get to where I’m going, I usually need my new glasses to see what’s around me with my declining eyesight.

Being 45 is wonderful in many ways, most notably, the fact that I just briefly forgot that I’m actually 46.

I’m slowly becoming a member of Ashley Judd’s ‘We Do Not Care Club.’ This ‘club’ is glorious to perimenopausal women who just want to be free in their own space- whether it be their deepening face wrinkles, gray headed roots or their black full piece swimsuits.

When is the last time you ran down to the shoreline with only the thought of how delightful the wave was going to feel when you dove into it? When is the last time you allowed yourself to be 100 percent free in your own magnificent body?

For most of us, it’s been way too long…but for me, I’m inching closer and closer to freedom.

Because let’s face it, part of not caring these days is because my brain is so foggy with forgetfulness.

Sometimes, I simply forget to care…what a gift!