Me And My Aches

So let's talk about me. Somehow I hurt my back in January and things have gotten progressively worse. I've been grunting and hunching and making sure Brett knows that things are hurting. For years I have listened to Mama and Papa Hon discuss all the ways their bodies fail them when they first wake up in the morning. The aches. The creaks. The little routine Laurie does with her joint cream to fool it into working before she really gets up in the morning. I've been waiting for this day. But I thought I had at least twenty more years of gooshy joints and bendy muscles. My back pain shocked me. And it made me mad.

As an avid non-exerciser, I created a theory whereupon any lean person with a trusty metabolism may avoid exercise until the beginning effects of middle-age, thereby ensuring that the required physical activity will be less than that of an affluent exerciser.
If I don't jog until I'm forty, I'll have to jog less far than if I had been jogging this whole time, while still reaping the same results. That's my theory. I know it doesn't work this way so keep your comments to yourself.
I used to jog consistently in high-school, back when I was a little tubby, and when I quit jogging and went to college, the pounds melted away. Since then, I have continued to waste away by no efforts of my own, (maybe it's a worm?) and have more recently decided that I'm not digging the skeleton look. I've always been plenty strong and have always been able to lift or move or do anything I needed to lift, move or do, so I considered myself a strange kind of skinny-strong and it only served to confirm my exercise theory.

A few weeks ago, my new physical therapy girl (who I just love) told me I have "tiny" glutes and a "basically hollow" core. Pardon? What do you mean? I'm skinny-strong. I'm a medical marvel!

Something about hearing a professional tell you that your legs and spine are doing the work your core should be doing, mixed with the pain I've been feeling when I move, really makes you stop being silly and pay attention. I need to strength-train or my back pain will get worse and more widespread. Aren't I too young to worry about aches and pains? Is this because I haven't been exercising? I have never even been inside of a gym. I don't really know how to go about strength training.

It's an intimidating bummer. But I've moved past that and have gotten just a wee bit excited about the idea of seeing the changes that caring for my body will make. Part of me hopes I'll beef up a little (not to be confused with "going to beef") and it really thrills me to think about how non-achy my body felt back when I was oh... well, just last year or so. At the moment I cannot jump or jog or dance and that scares me a bunch.

Mom told me that people start to fall apart around 30 but I didn't believe her because I'm not old enough to be 30. With all of this came the realization of how young 30 is even though it seems like a real adult age right up until the moment you get there. The idiots I went to school with are 30 now and they're still idiots. Thirty year olds are babies - so why do we ache? Why do we give them so much clout?
I know this means that I'm going to think that I'm equally as moronic at 40 and 50 as I do now because numbers are just labelling tactics and have nothing to do with wisdom or maturity. I feel like I already understand why 80 year-olds say they still feel young.

This is careening out of control.