I used to hike. Real hikes—the kind where you pack a lunch and come home with blisters and a sense of accomplishment and possibly a sunburn shaped like your backpack straps. I played tennis (badly). I've bodysurfed in Florida and Maui. I white-water rafted through Grand Canyon four times. I backpacked Yosemite's high country and kayacked with my grandson off Santa Catalina Island. I've snorkeled off Key West, waded to Percé Rock in Gaspé, Canada (when it was legal) and camped for 18 months on a remote part of Maui for the duration of the pandemic.

And all that was for fun! There was also the year I spent as a long-haul trucker.

And as I sit here two days before my birthday I find myself frequently thinking back fondly to those adventures, and so very grateful to have had the life I've had. No, it's not over; I'm doing more writing and programming than ever, and I'm excited about working with AIs in the future. That said, let's admit it: I'm facing the last quarter century of my life with diminishing physical stamina that's not going to get much better and it would be very sad if I were to spend my time bemoaning its loss, and sadder still if I were to ignore an older body's decreased ability to repair and try to regain my youth in a gym until I croaked of a heart attack at 80 while doing squats with some looksmaxxing trainer trying to spot me.

Those days are behind me. Not tragically—I had a good run (three times literally)—but definitely. Just shy of 75, my knees have opinions. My back has a whole editorial page. I've already had a hip replaced, and two weeks of agony before it started healing on its own, And my feet, which carried me faithfully through seven decades of adventures, have started filing grievances.

I don't regret not still being able to do the things I used to. I already did them.

But what do I do, now? In what direction do I reinvent myself for this new reality?

So here is the thing nobody tells you about getting older, possibly because it sounds too simple to be useful: you have to find joy in what you can still do. Not what you used to do. Not what you wish you could do. What you can do, right now, today, with the body you currently occupy.

The Walking Imperative

Walking is the big one. Stop walking and the clock ticks at double-time. I have watched it happen to people I know: they stop moving, and within months the world shrinks to the size of their living room. Then the size of their recliner. It is not a gentle decline. It is a trapdoor.

Now, if hiking or trail running or power-walking through the mall is no longer on your menu, that does not mean walking is off the table. You walk around your house. You walk to the mailbox. You walk to the kitchen to make coffee and then you walk back to the bedroom because you forgot why you went to the kitchen, and then you walk back to the kitchen because you remembered. That is three walks. You are already exercising!

As long as you can keep up with your own laundry, cooking, and basic housekeeping, you are walking. Maybe not far. Maybe not fast. But you are on your feet, and your feet are on the ground, and gravity has not yet won.

The Nice Lady

I am lucky. A nice lady comes by weekly to do what she can with my apartment. Without her, the place would qualify for FEMA assistance. But even with her help, the place would be a disaster if I did not at least clean my dishes as I use them. And I would quickly run out of clothes that fit—as, like most Americans, I am also dealing with a lifelong weight issue that makes my wardrobe a moving target in more ways than one.

So I do my own laundry. Not because I enjoy it in the way I once enjoyed bodysurfing. But because it needs doing, and I can do it, and that second part is not guaranteed forever.

The Secret

Here is where it gets interesting, and where I stop sounding like a motivational poster in a dentist's office.

While you are doing the laundry—or the dishes, or making the bed—be in your body. Not in your head. Not in your phone. In your body.

How do your feet feel as you shift your weight from the hamper to the machine? Your legs—is that the usual ache, or something new? Your lower back—better today or worse? Not to obsess, not to catastrophize, but just to notice.

This inventory is valuable. If something new shows up, you have information to share with your doctor instead of the usual "I dunno, it just kind of hurts everywhere?" But that is the practical benefit, and it is not the point.

The point is this: when it feels good—when your feet are warm on the floor and your legs are holding you up and your hands are doing what hands do—let yourself feel that goodness.

Enjoy it. Revel in it. Your body is working. Right now, in this moment, the machine is running. The gears are turning. You are upright and breathing and folding a warm towel fresh from the dryer and it smells like clean cotton and your dog is watching you from the doorway with an expression that says he loves you regardless of your BMI.

That is joy. Not the skydiving kind. Not the falling-in-love kind. The Tuesday afternoon, standing-in-your-kitchen, alive-and-aware kind. And it is available to you right now, for the price of paying attention.

Then finish the laundry.