Getting old is scary.

And I don't just mean in the way that this commercial hellscape makes it feel with its glorification of youth. Though that is part of it.

Sometimes my knee acts up. I wear a brace when running sometimes. Pulled my back last year after not stretching for an extended period. I pulled something in my shoulder last week or thereabouts, so I've gotta set aside most of my arm workouts for a little while.

I've hurt myself in the past while working out. The first several times I started the weightlifting adventure, my forearm would inevitably get torn necessitating me putting it away for months and losing all my progress. This foray has gone well, with me taking things extra slow, increasing weight and repetitions glacially, while also actually strengthening my forearms.

I'm not sure how I got this shoulder injury. I'd been doing deltoid raises for a while without increasing the weight or the reps or the frequency. I wonder if maybe my practicing right-handed cartwheels in the park might've contributed? Or maybe doing the heavy bench presses on top of it all?

It's hard to tell. Either way, for now there's no reason for me to worry. Just a bummer to disrupt my routines.

To tell the truth, I've been amazed at how well I've done with my workouts limited. My anxiety hasn't been looming as fiercely as it usually does, especially for this time of year when the seasons are changing. Normally by now I'd be neck deep in my own tumultuousness no matter how much iron I pumped.

I had a feeling this autumn would be different though. My brother stopped by to visit a few weeks ago and he noted that my "aura" had changed for the better, and dramatically so.

Though I do still attribute much of my transformation to exercise, even if it wasn't just exercise. A lot of it was just daring to leave my house and show my face and carry myself with a smile. But it's much easier when I'm confident in my appearance.

A couple weeks away from some of my lifts won't undo all my progress; I keep reminding myself of that. I've restarted lots of times, anyway.

If I'm being honest however, restarting is so very annoying. I feel like I've hit reset on my life (or had it hit for me) so many times that I'm stuck on these initial levels. When can I graduate to the promised land of the next level?

I look around my life and find myself far beyond where I was before though. So maybe I already have moved beyond the initial. I guess that just adds to the potential horror of having to start over.

I spent a lot of my life not moving forward for fear of stumbling and having to start over. But whenever I stopped being Hamlet for a moment or two I always found great things while moving forward and fixing everything.

And then I'd stumble and have to start over. My worst fears are things that will inevitably happen, I've discovered.

Then again, have I had to start over? If I learn, then I'm already better than the first time I tried, right? Whatever my other qualities are, I'm always learning.

This autumn is showing me how much I've learned. I'm seeing how much my persistence is paying off despite how inconsistent I can be. I'm seeing in me the things that others swore to me that they saw, without any dependence on the crutch of arrogance or the comfort of humility.

So the lesson I find myself learning now is one I struggle with. Having to sit and wait for myself to heal is a lesson in patience I seldom get. My life is in motion though, and things are always changing and I'm not sure what will happen next, but life is a lot less banal after I decided it wasn't. Patience doesn't hurt so much with that in mind.

All things in time. Good things are on their way. Just gotta let myself be for the time being. The fire in me has to smolder now and again I guess. That's not a bad thing. Time goes on, and I'm not getting any younger. It's probably better that way. It'll make me better in time.

After all, patience is the watchword.