Life is a Pinball Machine and a Little Padding Helps

As many of you know, I am a an average middle-age chick who doesn't always exercise and eat right, and I have pillows for hips these days.  In order to combat said pillows and just to get feeling better in general, I have started running. Actually, I have restarted running. You know how it goes.

I usually run on a stretch of pavement that runs for a few miles along the shore of Puget Sound. It's lovely, and in the morning I am joined by dog walkers and other runners including a number of young, strong, fast, angular females. No pillows on those gals.

I was pretty athletic growing up, so at one time I was angular like them. As I ran and contemplated the softening of my angles into pillowy voluptuousness over the years, I realized that they represented experience and wisdom and confidence and finally enjoying the sound of my own laughter, even when directed at myself! They represented lessons learned, relationships come and gone, and everything else that made me me.

I continued to run, and my brain decided to give me a shot of my life as a pinball machine. Like a pinball machine, I was dropped into my life by my mother (that may explain a lot). Then, when young and angular and sleek and fast, I raced around trying to determine my path, racing on to the next big thing, bouncing hard off of the bumpers but not always having a say in which direction I ricocheted, picking up many bruises and dents, then getting whacked by a flipper and getting shot off in a different direction that I did not necessarily want to go, ricocheting off of more bumpers as I went. Ouch.

As I grew, my pace slowed a bit. I could see the upcoming bumpers and try to avoid them or at least try to determine which direction I would ricochet and what bumpers lay along that trajectory. I still ricocheted in unforeseen directions and still ended up with a few bruises here and there, but overall came through it all feeling a bit better.

Now, my path is even a bit slower and more deliberate. I saunter through the bumpers and choose to get whacked by the flippers far less often (but want to still get whacked to stay in the game). My pillows give me a very soft landing against the bumpers and the time it now takes to rebound from the impact gives me time to determine how I want to roll off of the bumper and which direction I want to go. Do I want to head for the flipper and get shot into another round? Do I want to find a place to rest for a bit? My mental pinball machine has a Hawaiian theme. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .

So, ya, as I run along, no doubt there are moments when I envy the youth and strength and angles leaving me in the dust. But fleeting those moments are.