A Eulogy for Flexibility
How to keep rolling with the punches as time goes by
“I don’t believe in ageing. I believe in forever altering one’s aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism. And to alter now, cleanly and sanely, I want to shuffle off this loose living randomness: people; reviews; fame; all the glittering scales; and be withdrawn, and concentrated.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary
It is true: when you get older, you become less flexible, both in the literal and the figurative sense.
Though overweight for most of my life (I was already too heavy as a toddler), I once prided myself on being extremely flexible — partly due to my ‘loose joints’, as an orthopaedist once insensitively pointed out. A physical therapist I had to see regularly as a child once told me I was nimble as a rubber ball.
I used to enjoy yoga without any restrictions.
These days, I’m having trouble lifting my legs up high enough to put on my pants. The way I fumble around these days would be laughable if it wasn’t so annoying.
Jealously I observe my husband, who is able to squat down with the drop of a hat…
