Facing Facts

Do you remember when you were 18 yrs old? I mean do you remember what it felt like to be 18? How easy it was to move your body? To not have any pain in your body at that age? Yeah...me either.
Age has a way of not letting us know in advance that our bodies are changing and we will no longer be able to do some of the things we did before until its to late.  You all know what I am talking about. That day you made the decision to do something that was fun and exciting that required a high amount of physical activity. And when you wake up the next morning you ask yourself the age old question....."Why did I do that?"

Its kind of the same thing as drinking to much the night at the infamous wedding reception where you thought you were "Johnny the Disco King" or " Betty Beat Box Ballerina". The next morning your eyes open and immediately you realize that you cant feel your legs...that is until you try to move them.  You usually only make this type of mistake a couple of times before you learn your lesson.

I finally learned my lesson after I tried to play flag football one season on a league. Was I in for an eye opener? ..or a Body opener would be more fitting. I was 40 at the time, and I played running back...(I know right?...I run about as good as I spel..I mean spell (You get the picture) It wasn't 2 days into the practice when I pulled a groin muscle (Not really sure if it was a muscle or not, but whatever it was...it hurt real bad when I ran.) I tried to play through the pain...you know ...I wanted to be a tough football player and besides, my wife and kids were coming to watch the games...so I had to play. 

Its Game time and....did I mention our team sucked ?....really bad.?.. .yeah , we were losing like 27-0 in the first 5 minutes of play. So it wasn't like the other team  needed to try that hard to beat us...we just lost naturally for them. One play, our quarterback threw a pass to one of our receivers and he actually caught it and was running towards the goal line, I was watching him run when all of a sudden "BAM"........see all the pretty stars?Oh wait...those aren't stars.,..those are lights and why am I looking up at them?  Why am I laying down during a football game? 

Apparently some (much younger)  player from the opposite team decided it would be cool to blindside the old guy....in front of the stands where the old guys family was watching.
I did what any 40 year old, washed up, x-football player would do, I got up and pretended it didn't really happen. (you know...like the old guy who falls down while he is dancing at the reception and he gets up really quick and keeps on dancing....like nobody saw him....but everybody did.) I didn't feel any pain ...I swear...well except for when the kids started talking about how daddy got flattened like a pancake on the sideline and my wife saying" Honey...your not a spring chicken anymore". Both of those hurt pretty bad. But she was right and it was time I faced the facts...and I did.  I took up Bowling :)

Its a hard thing to face when your brain is telling you that you can still do these type of things but your body yells back at the brain saying...Hey you idiot.....what the hell were you thinking?..I'm to old for this crap!!!!