Walk, Trot, Run: A Sailing Lesson
Several weeks ago, I repealed a personal law: Thou shalt not run. Although what I do may not look like real running to some, believe me, compared to my movement beforehand this is definitely more than a walking pace. The reason I am broadcasting this is to underscore the importance of “never say never”.
Why take up running (or as in my case – a feeble trot), out of the blue like that? After all, if a fifty- something woman says she has forsworn an activity because of her health, shouldn’t she be allowed the prerogative? For the average Jo, running could not possibly be healthy. The homo sapien biped was designed to put one foot in front of the other but certainly not for any rate faster than three miles per hour. There are too many torn meniscuses out there proving that precise point. Or so I was willing to think.
Speeding up was an unintended but inspired response to meeting up with an old friend who taught me that if I had the capacity to use my legs then I had better get going and be grateful. My original intention was to walk myself to a mildly better level of fitness. I had no ambition beyond a leisurely two and a half mile per hour pace. As the weeks ticked by, I started to fall into the evening rhythm of putting on my trainers and walking out the door with a sense of relief and anticipation. A positive attitude was beginning to replace my initial begrudging of the time requirement. I was finding that I was sleeping a lot better plus being a little more mindful of what I was eating, some benefits I had not anticipated. I also was getting some important “thinking time” out of the deal. Then six weeks ago, a funny thing happened: I had the urge to put on a little speed. A little spring in my feet, it was as simple as that, and I was running.
I was rushing to grab a soda at my high school reunion when I foolishly fell over the foot rest of someone’s wheel chair. Pulling myself back together and apologizing profusely, I looked into the face of my old girlhood friend, Sherry B. Her grin was as generous as ever and so was her demeanor. We warmed to each other as though little more than a couple of months had passed since we had last seen each other, not the actual decades. Of course, we had both changed but Sherry’s transformation was the most remarkable on so many levels. A Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis in her early twenties had made a deep physical impact but she was also now a profound philosopher as I was about to find out.
As spunky as ever, Sherry gave me a colorful and comical summary of raising her three sons to varying stages of young manhood. She asked for the same accounting from my life and listened intently. She caught me by complete surprise, when as I mentioned I was currently contracting with an adult diapers company, she grabbed my arm. She let me know we were on some more common ground. Ever since her youngest left the diaper scene, she had been grappling with her own incontinence, coming to grips with the idea that it was going to have to be a fact of her life. It was a struggle that was not ever going to be over for her. But always a big fan of Dolly Parton’s as she was, she kept a saying of Dolly’s on the fridge. “We cannot change the direction of the wind, but we can adjust the sails.” “So,” she said, “I have been taking sailing lessons for quite a few years now.”
Up until then, I had been looking at my glass as half empty, cranking about getting older and fearful of the limitations that might impose. That afternoon Sherry inadvertently shook that out of me. Yes, there was that ache in my hips (diminishing with the walking exercise though. Hmmm.), and occasionally an unanticipated sneeze threatened to send me off for a change but nothing that resembled the need to reach for adult diapers.
Sherry’s incontinence was disease induced at an early age; women in my healthy condition have to blame it on the deteriorating muscle tone that comes with aging. Such is the lot of the female anatomy; tiny little bladder sphincters that keep the dam from bursting. Women’s lifelong accumulated stresses from childbearing, impact exercise (yes, running is one of them) and aging can all work against maintaining bladder control. Adult diapers are certainly not every woman’s eventual destiny, but of the 25 million Americans who experience occasional or chronic urinary incontinence, almost 80 percent are women. With numbers like that, it is important for a growing number of our population to be taking Sherry’s sailing lessons and develop healthy coping attitudes.
Sherry and I stay in touch these days through FaceBook, determined not to let silence overtake the distance that separates us. She is the one who encouraged me to break into my slow little trot. I now tilt my head back and watch the clouds when I am sure of my footing. There is pleasure in that. Also I find I breathe a little easier this way and I am not obsessing about how far I have yet to go. I sent her a little FB post about this experience and she replied with two helpful pieces of advice: “Set your sails and catch the wind. And don’t forget to buy a decent bra.
