While my regular trainer was away on honeymoon, her replacement was a strapping young man who felt he had to keep reminding me that at 22, he was still a spring chicken.
Why? I’m not quite sure but I let him gloat.
I was getting ready to do 150 kg leg presses when I decided to tell him that I was exactly 20 years older than his sprucey self.
“Well, I never!” he said in his thick Yorkshire accent.
Not entirely sure whether that response indicated that he was pleasantly surprised or overtly shocked.
Either way, I wasn’t ashamed.
I am 42. So what? The weights machine agreed my legs aren’t any weaker for it.
If there’s anything I’ve learned since diving into this new decade, age is an attitude. It’s only an issue if you make it one.
My mum turns 80 in less than a month. Her and dad resigned from their night shift jobs at Australia Post only last year but she’s hung onto her cleaning job. God forbid you ever take that away from her.
When I look back on her life, I noticed that my mum never let age be an obstacle.
In her 30’s, she faced challenges as a single mum of 2 toddlers. It was the 60’s in a politically and socially unstable Indonesia. Somehow she survived it as a kitchen hand.
Her 40’s she began a new life in Australia, leaving family and friends behind as well as her credentials as a senior secretary.
Employed as a 9 to 5 Australian Post officer didn’t completely fulfil her search for opportunities in the new country, my tenacious mum made Indonesian spring rolls on the side, selling them to all interested delicatessens and small food retailers throughout Canberra.
It took me ages to get over my aversion to spring rolls.
My mother has done so much and keeps doing more that I can’t believe she’s about to reach her 9th decade.
To me, she’ll always be invincible. There are no major signs this lady’s slowing down. And most of all, she’s shown me that it’s not the age that counts, its what you do in those years.
A number has never stopped her. Why would it stop me?
Joining Essentially Jess for IBOT
