How to feel old....

Want to know what it feels like to be old?  Try something new later in life, say when you're over 25 years old like myself.  Yesterday I decided to try snowboarding on a dare from my two children, "Come on Mom, everyone's doing it."  My brain replied, "If everyone was jumping off a cliff would you jump off too?"  But I gleefully went to the demo shop and rented the board.

I was pleasantly surprised that I could walk so much better in snowboarding boots as I carried my board feeling very young and hip over to the baby yard of the ski resort.  My son, the great instructor he is said, "Now just strap it in and go down the hill."  If I were under 3 feet and it didn't hurt as much hitting the ground, I'd probably take that advice but my mind was explaining the law of gravity on old bones and joints along with no experience, so I strapped the board in and went down the hill-on my butt.

If you really want to feel old, take a snowboarding lesson as a way to learn the right way to do it, but with a cute YOUNG (yes, under 25 so younger than myself) instructor who looks like a graceful ballerina as she says, "you just turn your body, while keeping balance on the board, head up and slowly go like a falling leaf down the hill."  Cue old fart not looking so young and hip, going like a rolling rock down the hill.

Then finally if you want to feel old spend the day looking up at the sky as you wipe out on a continuous basis trying to make it down the baby hill as little kids on same said boards fly past you.  Feel old as the mountain closes and you are not sure you have the energy to walk back to the rental shop, let alone have that apres ski beer with said cute instructor who looks like she hasn't broken a sweat all day.  Then go home and soak in your epsom salt bath with an IV of Ibuprophen in your system and contemplate how you're just too damn old to learn something new.

Then think of all the ways you can be that falling leaf going down the mountain and get up the next day and do it again.  Screw getting old, just fight it each step of the way....