Plus One

Each time I go to the gym, I sit or stand on one of the cardio machines. Mostly I use stationary bikes, but sometimes I like to run on the treadmill.

Each time you start the machine, it asks you a few questions before you start.

The first option is to choose the course you want. I always select manual. That way, I can move things up or down depending on how I feel. Then it follows through with a few more questions that mainly have simple answers.

How long? That's an easy question. I usually choose either thirty minutes or an hour.

Weight? Another easy question. My weight fluctuates a little, maybe five pounds up or down, depending on how strict I've been with my diet. So I put in something close to 200lbs. At five foot eleven inches at 200lbs, I'm technically overweight. I feel good at this weight, so I don't mind.

The questions that come next are generally straightforward.

Age? Most days, I press the two numbers that equal my age, and I move on. No big deal.

I started working out when I was sixteen. I was still in high school, and I had saved up three hundred dollars and joined what was known as 24-Hour Nautilus at that time. The monthly cost was nineteen dollars, and the gym included cardio machines, weights, an indoor track, and a swimming pool. The track was on the second floor and circled the swimming pool on the first floor.

I loved going to the gym. I would spend a few hours working out most days of the week. At that point, when the machine came on, and I would put in my age at sixteen, it didn't really matter.

Now, over thirty years later, my age ticks up a notch each year around my birthday.

This year it went from forty-eight to forty-nine.

As I get older, each year, I reflect on my age.

If I'm lucky and keep healthy, I probably have another good thirty years left. It's less than I have in the past, but it's still not bad. I can still accomplish a lot in thirty years.

I have been thinking about age a lot as I get older.

I know I have to worry about what I eat, and I have to keep moving. Your body quickly adapts to the challenges placed upon it, and if you remove the challenges and it has nothing to adapt to, it slowly withers and dies.

We are not meant to sit around and do nothing; if we do, our bodies and mind both turn against us.

So I continue to exercise and try to fight off the number that ticks up yearly at the gym.

Looking at the number, I always think that's another year gone. As the number climbs up, the remaining time goes down.

I often feel sad about that ticking-up number.

It's not like there is anything I can do about it. We all know that we are going to age and what that means.

If we are lucky enough to survive each year and make it to our birthday, we know that there are a finite number of birthdays. They will run out.

Of course, if you live your life that way, you are going to have a sad life thinking only of your eventual death, but that's not healthy.

You have to think about things another way. Or at least you have to try to. For me, it's not always easy.

Looking down at that number, I reflect on the year and consider any accomplishments or mistakes I've made.

If you are living your life, you are going to have both. You will make mistakes, and you will accomplish things that make you proud.

This all goes through my head in a few minutes, and then I move on to other things. It's not something you should dwell on at the gym.

I'm here to do something, and I need to do it.

Like every other day, I have to go through my workout. My age takes me out of my workout for a minute, and then I move back away from those thoughts and go on with my workout.

I tell myself, if you are here working out, you are still healthy.

I'm still healthy.

I'm a little more sore in the mornings when I wake up, but since I work out and keep moving and don't do anything crazy, I'm not that sore.

My joints sometimes crack, and I overdid it on running, so my knee is recovering from something, but overall I'm feeling great.

The only thing about getting older that bothers me is that I look different on the outside than I feel on the inside.

Inside I feel young. Outside, my gray hair shows my age.

I grow hair on my chin, and I'm not sure why. I like how it looks. The problem is that it now got a lot of gray in it.

The sides of my head also show a lot of gray. So I look like exactly what I am. I am a slightly over middle-aged man.

It doesn't matter, though. I can still do the things I like to do. I have a great family I love spending time with, and I mostly like my job.

So why does that ticking-up number at the gym bother me so much?

Why do I think about it every year and feel a little sad?

I think having a good life makes it difficult to see. I know nothing goes on forever, and eventually, I won't see the number tick up at the gym.

The problem with thinking that way is that if you start only thinking about the future, you won't enjoy what's happening today. Even if what is happening today is not great, you still need to experience it.

So each year, I have to push the thoughts of my ticking-up age out of my mind and focus on getting through my workout, and then since I work out in the morning most days after that, I have to worry about getting my daughter ready for school and then getting myself ready for work.

The daily tasks of life need to be done. My daughter is going to want to stay in bed and not get up for school, and I'll go through the struggle of getting her up. Sometimes I can get her up through humor or playing, and sometimes I have to get mad at her to get her up. I'm not really mad at her since I understand not wanting to go to school, but I pretend.

That's what's important. I have to remind myself. Living in the moment and not focusing on a stupid number that has increased by one.

After all, one isn't that big of a number. It just keeps adding up.