I am turning 58 next Thursday, and I have decided I want abs.
Not metaphorical abs. Not “abs are made in the kitchen” abs. Not the comforting middle-aged delusion that there are abs under there somewhere, you just can’t see them. I want the kind of abs that show up uninvited in a mirror and make you go, oh, hello, who is that?
I am also growing my hair long. The dude in the graphic on this post is inspiration 🙂
I do not know what any of this says about me, and I have decided I do not care.
For the record, I am back on the health and fitness wagon for somewhere between the twelfth and fourteenth time. I’ve lost count. The wagon and I have a long, complicated relationship. I have fallen off it. I have shoved it down a hill. I have, on several occasions, set it on fire and danced around the flames eating a sleeve of Oreos.
But I keep climbing back on. That has to count for something.
The current setup: Zepbound (recently switched from Wegovy, because after ten months of standing perfectly still on the scale, it was time to bring in a new bouncer). Weight Watchers, again, because at some point you stop being embarrassed about returning to the things that work for you and just return to them. And the gym at least five times a week, doing the kind of workouts that leave me looking like I’ve been pulled from a swimming pool fully clothed.
Fifty-five pounds down over the past several years. Then a ten-month plateau. Ten. I would like to formally request a refund for those ten months, please and thank you.
So now I’m breaking it. Or trying to. Or, more accurately: stubbornly refusing to accept that the plateau is the new normal.
Here is the part I think people don’t say out loud often enough:
I am doing this for vanity. I said what I said 🙂
Not primarily for my health. (Though my health will benefit, like getting a free tote bag at a conference.) Not because my doctor wagged a finger at me. Not because I’m on some sacred capital-J Journey.
I want to look hot.
At 58.
For the first time in my entire life.
I have spent decades in a body I was variously told to hate, hide, fix, apologize for, or transcend. I have done the spiritual bypass version of body image, where you pretend none of it matters because you are evolved. I have done the resigned version, the comedic version (oh ho ho, look at me, the funny “rubenesque” guy), the “it’s what’s inside that counts” version.
I have not, until now, done the version where I just say: I want the body I never had. I am going to go get it. Mind your business.
The hair is part of this somehow. I look in the mirror and see something starting to resemble the version of me that lived only in my head when I was twenty-two and terrified of being seen. There is something deeply satisfying about meeting that guy in the mirror finally, almost forty years later, and saying, hey, buddy. Sorry I’m late.
A few friends have raised a delicate eyebrow. Long hair? At 58? As if there’s a window between 19 and 34 during which one is permitted to experiment with one’s appearance, and after that you must report to the men’s section of Kohl’s and select a sensible polo.
No thank you.
Here is what I have come to understand about the upteenth attempt at anything.
The first time you try, you’re full of optimism and innocent stupidity. The fifth time, you’re disillusioned. The tenth time, you’re tired, and you’re starting to suspect the wagon is for other people.
The twelfth time — somewhere around there — something different happens. You stop expecting magic. You stop demanding that this be the time. You just do it. Because the alternative is not doing it, and you’ve tried that, and you don’t like it as much as you keep telling yourself you do.
The twelfth time isn’t fueled by hope. It’s fueled by something quieter. A grown-up mulishness. I know how this works. I know it’s hard. I know I might fail again. I’m doing it anyway.
That’s the thriving part.
Not the abs. Not the weight loss. Not the hair. Those are souvenirs.
The thriving is in the decision, made over and over, to keep showing up for the version of yourself you haven’t met yet. Especially at 58. Because at 58 you have finally, blessedly, stopped giving a damn what any of it looks like from the outside.
You’re doing it for the guy in the mirror.
The one who has been waiting a long time.
So here’s to vanity. Here’s to the upteenth attempt. Here’s to Zepbound and Weight Watchers and one more set when your legs are shaking. Here’s to growing your hair out at an age when you’re “supposed to” be settling into dignity.
I want the body I never had. I am going to go get it.
And on May 14th, when I turn 58, I will blow out the candles, eat a sensible amount of cake (tracked, points logged, no shame), and get up the next morning and go back to the gym.
The wagon and I have an understanding now.
Wherever you are on your own upteenth attempt — health, sobriety, art, love, the novel you keep almost finishing — I see you. The number of times you’ve started over is not a measure of your failure. It’s a measure of how much you still want it. Keep going. Be a little vain about it. Want it out loud.
If this hit a nerve, the rest of what I’m building lives at randyscobey.com — Thrive for the personal growth stuff, Wayfinder for the reflective stuff, Mugwump Ramblings for the political stuff. Pick your poison. Subscribe to one or all. The water’s fine.
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