Sophistique

Recently there has been a preponderance of evidence heaped at my door that clearly shows that I am, in fact, nowhere near as young as I once was. This may come as a shock to some, but I am god-damned near to 30 years old. Despite this fact, until recently, I viewed myself in the same physical light as when I was 20. This was a period in my life when I was running five miles a day, a vegetarian, a teetotaler and a non-smoker. I somehow did not notice the gravity of time having rendered my lovely figure into something more becoming a 45-year-old man. I think I may be developing bitch-tits and my love handles have become more like love overhangs. My lack of physical prowess has become most evident in the way my lungs handle stairs these days. When I was younger, taking the stairs when the escalator was out of service on the T back home was no big deal; a minor inconvenience at worst. These days, I find myself trudging up the stairs in the SF underground like an octogenarian on a treadmill. The worst part is that I recently gave up smoking for the fifth time in my life and no longer have their carcinogenic toxins to blame for my muscular fallibilities. I would that I had some other thing to blame than myself and the increasingly sedentary lifestyle I've become accustomed to, which is why I am blaming my aging and not laziness. I suppose this reflection has helped me clarify some things to myself but probably has given no sort of edification to anyone reading this. But there are 75-year-old marathoners and someone's got to get something out of this ambling passage and it might as well be me.