Invested

8.22.19

O Lord of Boredom, please spare me any dry-as-dust financial planning talks. I nod brightly at The Wise Advisor while trying to work out if I can remember all the lyrics to Scooby, Scooby-Do, Where Are You?

The answer is – yes, I can. You can, too. Go ahead – I’ll wait.

Here’s the point: You know you’re supposed to put a few dollars aside each week so when you’re decrepit and frail, you’ll have enough money to play Bingo at the VFW Hall on Saturdays. What else is retirement for?

(I have no idea where my local VFW is, nor if they offer Bingo – but I like the idea of knowing these things once I’m old and frail. I’m going to be a hell of a Bingo player in my dotage.)

So now I’m thinking there’s a different kind of investment I can make to have a better decrepitude.

If I put in a few hours every week on keeping my muscles flexy and less likely to snap under pressure, then when I trip over a curb on my way to Bingo, I won’t actually break an ankle. Or a hip.

I’m 59 years old; there’s no sense in deluding myself into believing I can exercise my way to a supermodel ass. It’s just not going to happen. But I can delay the onset of the Scooter Season for as long as possible.

I went to Balance Class today. Barbara’s legend as a spectacular trainer is only growing; there were sixteen people in Balance Class. Body Dynamics frowns on this; they’re quite serious about keeping their small classes SMALL. But Barbara just starts grinning as more and more people stream into the exercise room.

She loves a crowd. “This is where your balance is necessary. You’re not going to fall over in the middle of your kitchen floor. You’re going to get into a situation where you have less control – a crowd, an unstable surface like ice – and your body needs to know how to protect you.”

So the many multitudes worked across the room, giggling and snorting as we squeezed past each other. Charming Karen and I did a do-si-do of truly epic grace, and Barb and I were hip to hip during the warm-ups, discussing which songs we could work out to. (We are of one mind on needing a lot of harmony to sing along with.) Penny, graceful as any ballet dancer, and I tossed and caught the big grapefruit-like weighted ball and danced to Earth Wind and Fire.

And we were all making an investment in the Better Aging bank.

Sometimes I think of these peculiar exercises (and in Gabby’s Stretch Class, right after Balance Class) as applying an oil can to the frozen joints of the Tin Man. Whenever an exercise is particularly awkward, I know I’m getting into a joint or a muscle or a tendon that thought it was done; it had settled down to playing Bingo at the VFH Hall. But I’m not quite ready for that, and the strange, awkward exercises are the ones that are doing me the most good.

So, seriously: Would you rather listen to someone talk about investments? Or sweat for 30-60 minutes? I know; me, too. They’re both dire. Adulting is so BORING… but you know it’s the right thing to do!

I know we’ll catch that villain!