Today is a day I can be my best.
I am smart, I am strong, I am kind.
Today is THE day I WILL be my best.
It all starts in my mind.
— My Mastery 2024 affirmation
It’s finally here.
After eight years, I am going back out into the field for a black belt test. This time next week I will be God-knows-where doing God-knows-what in the pursuit of my 8th degree black belt. I’m nervous, excited, concerned, and determined.
Each of those words perfectly sums up my emotions on any given second.
Some days, it’s easy to focus on my three titanium joints. I have lousy cartilage—a congenital condition that means the stuff just falls apart. After my first shoulder surgery to address a torn labrum over 20 years ago, I saw the video and my cartilage resembled white cotton candy. My surgeon declared I had the 5 P’s and 1 T syndrome: Piss-Poor Protoplasm Poorly Put Together.
I had my right knee replaced in 2009, my right shoulder in 2019, and my left shoulder in 2021. My left knee will have to wait until next year, and I fear the right one may need to be redone after that—They don’t last forever, cautioned my surgeon. If one more person calls me The Bionic Woman, I may throw up.
I prefer Wolverine. Adamantium is so much cooler.
It’s very easy to judge me. Why on earth do you need another stripe on your black belt? At nearly 63 years old, isn’t it time to retire the gi and find some more sedentary activity? This isn’t a healthy obsession—there are other ways to stay fit.
I’ve heard them all. And yes, I know I can’t do this forever. But what’s the alternative?
I’m convinced far too many of us have bought the absurd notion that at a certain age we simply must restrict our dreams. That some things are for the young, that our ecosystem of activity is limited and constrained by osteoporosis or cognitive decline or reduced strength. That we should find a nice little playground that still allows us to feel active but won’t let us get hurt.
The second half of life becomes an asterisk.
You look great *for 40/50/60! How many people *your age are doing this [fill in the blank]? Aren’t you just the sexy *grandmother?
I’m sure they are well-meaning words, but they feel a lot like condescension masquerading as compliments.
If you’re in the second half of life (or the last third, like I am), where have you given in to the circumscription of what you can do? Where have you simply accepted the compliments—and the asterisks? Have you helped draw the boundaries around your life?
Words matter. If others speak words of limits, we need to speak words of transcendence. We need to dream…and then to act.
After a teenage pregnancy that irrevocably changed all my life plans, I got a bachelor’s degree at 40, a master’s degree at 50, and wrote my first book at 60. I published my first novel this year.
And I’m going to go out in the field next week and do my utmost best to earn my 8th degree black belt.
I’m no different from anyone. I’m just stubbornly insistent on refusing asterisks. I demand to live a transcendent life. I won’t just repeat my affirmation. I’ll believe it.
Don’t listen to the naysayers. Climb that mountain, write that book, go on that date, run that marathon. Whatever your dreams, go out and live.
What’s the alternative?
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
— "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley
"I’m just stubbornly insistent on refusing asterisks." is my new favorite saying. Great post!