Day 127: Can Rigor Mortis set in While You're Still Alive?

I am fighting a battle against time. This isn’t only my fight I realize, in one way or another we are all fighting against Father Time. Aging, death, the early morning alarm, work deadlines, these are all typical battles we fight involving the impending future. My battle is with my body. I feel my good years slipping away as my back troubles, arthritis, flexibility, headaches, vision, memory, insomnia and circulation all become issues of concern. Who’s body is this?

When did I start to have chronically dry skin or spider veins on the backs of my legs? These days when I have a cold I can no longer fight through it and go to work anyway, instead I am flat on my back and down for the count. I am working out harder than I have in years and with each pound I hope to lose I am not trying to get to a better body, I am just trying to get back to my weight of five years ago. Through it all, I am also fighting the ticking of the clock that moves me ever closer to my suspected end. I have muscular-skeletal issues, my spine is crap causing lifelong headaches and chronic pain as well as reduced upper body mobility. My arthritis, currently visible only in the slight skew of my fingers, will likely result in debilitating pain and gnarled hands.

I am working to keep myself healthy now, but also because I feel the future bearing down on me and I don’t know how long my body will last before it betrays me. There is book called the birthday book and in it, is a listing for every birth day and a specific reading for those born on that day. I read mine nearly 15 years ago and it predicted both the muscular skeletal issues and an eventual confinement to a wheelchair. I think about this often when I inventory all my physical ailments. How long until my neck and shoulder tension causes a hump, rendering me a stooped over old lady? Will my legs be mottled with raised and swollen purple snake-like veins choking off my circulation? What about my hands? If I cannot write or hold a book won’t my mind slowly decay along with my hand dexterity?

I realize the future is unwritten and perhaps I will be lucky and my body will hold out, but there are some things you just feel. This body, however I take care of it, has an expiration date as do we all. I worry that I feel mine slipping away and its ability to rebound and heal lies slightly beyond my grasp. A gypsy told me that I would die relatively young so maybe I can outlast my body after all. I’d rather die while still able to enjoy this shell. The best could still happen, but just in case it doesn’t, I’m lacing up my running shoes because this one looks to be a real foot race.