Young Only at Heart

I didn’t get a blog post out this morning.

Normally I write my posts the night before and schedule them. If I am really on the ball, it may be a day or two sooner. I haven’t figured out the trick to writing a ton of posts, scheduling them and then going about my life. I wonder if that day will come.

My only excuse for not getting a post out when I normally do is because I am not as young as I used to be.

Let me explain.

When I look in the mirror I don’t see the graceful aging that is happening. I am going to call it graceful because its me and I can. I don’t look my age because am lucky that I have some quality genes that disguise my true age. It makes me forget how old I am sometimes.

Except for weekends like I’ve just had.

It was a good weekend spent with friends, celebrating. A friend is getting married soon and, much to our surprise, another just became engaged the night before. We had a lot to celebrate. I also realized I’d never been to a bachelorette party.

It was tame as those types of parties go. The bride requested no cakes in the shape of body parts nor tiaras or sashes. Just friends, music and general good times.

I believe the weekend lived up to this request. We went to a small metropolitan area in up north. We sampled restaurants, wine and hard cider, which was a first for me. There are several breweries in the area and we found one with music and darts. The beer wasn’t bad either. I don’t play darts, either with or without alcohol. Not sure why.

The evening ended relatively early, especially for a bachelorette party. That is when the realization that I am not as young as I used to be began to dawn on me.

This same metropolitan area is a major tourist hotspot in our state. This particular weekend they were also hosting a soccer tournament and hotels were problematic for a small party who only intended on one evening in this fair city. We solved these woes by pitching a tent in the state campground near the bay.

This isn’t really a problem. I like to camp and I like to camp in tents. I have my own kit consisting of sleeping pad, bag and pillow along with other paraphernalia . I’ve done this before and have enjoyed it.

This night however, was at the end of a celebration, the type of which I don’t normally do.

As morning dawned and my hip hit the hard dirt beneath my tent, I understood clearly that I am not as young as I used to be. I woke up cold and sore and generally grumpy though the coffee we had shortly cured that.

In hindsight, I failed to air my sleeping pad up enough so I felt the hard ground quite a lot. Since I knew I would get cold, I layered my clothing to help with that. Except that I forgot that since I am not as young as I once was, I also have temperature fluctuations in the night (i.e. hot flashes). By morning, I was cold due to the moisture both from me and the condensation from the other bodies in the tent. Not a good combination.

We woke up to a beautiful, warm morning. Found a place for a fabulous breakfast and everyone headed home. On the drive I wondered what I’d been thinking.

I needed a day to recover. Consequently, I did little for the rest of the day including not writing this post nor anything else.

So now I am back to a semi-normal routine. Working but as I write this I am at a training and “camping” in a nice hotel, still trying to recover from my weekend.

The question for any choice is would you do it again, given all that you learned in the process.

Unequivocally, yes. I would do it all over again.

Would you?