Getting older is not for the weak. This has become my mantra the past year as I’ve struggled physically with ongoing back and hip issues. How it started: I sneezed while getting up from my recliner. While this sounds like the beginning of a joke, it isn’t, although I have tried to laugh with every doctor, coach, and physical therapist that I’ve worked with this past year.
All of us go through varying degrees of injuries and I didn’t think anything was amiss. I figured I’d be fine in two weeks. As time passed, my ability to function normally seemed episodic. There were days I used a cane because I couldn’t stand up straight or walk, and days I walked cane-free around Kachina Wetlands. I was disheartened that every time my back and hip seemed better, something would set me back, like stepping of a high curb.
Surprisingly, my back seemed invincible the week I held my dad, half-carrying him from bed to bathroom to chair and back again. Later, from chair to hospital bed. When I returned to Flagstaff after he died, it felt as though I lived on a heating pad for at least a month. I wondered why I was able to help my dad during his last week in ways that I couldn’t move my own body the previous six months.
I discovered something called “hysterical strength,” which is when people show extraordinary physical strength. Most of us think of stories we’ve heard about the mother who can lift her car to rescue her baby trapped inside. Hysterical strength typically presents itself in fight-or-flight situations. More recently, scientists have discovered that situations that cause extreme stress can also trigger hysterical strength. The desire to make my dad comfortable during his final days triggered a hysterical strength episode for me. Somehow I was able to hold him up even when I worried we might collapse together on the floor.
As the year went on and x-rays and specialists stacked up, I thought back to how I was able to carry my dad even on the days I was tired or in pain. When I returned to Flagstaff, my husband had a heart scare and the next thing we knew, he had stents put in. He felt okay and was ready to go back to work next day, but his doctor nixed that. Then, my mother worried that she might have something going on with her liver, which thankfully was healthy. In the back of my mind, I knew that I needed more strength to take care of my loved ones if something happened to them and that I couldn’t rely on my brain tricking itself into another hysterical strength episode.
Having always been a reader and an “indoorsy” girl, rigorous exercise has never been something I’ve sought out. Like many people, I spent more time walking during the pandemic, especially as a way to meet up with friends outside. I was happy with my two-mile walks around Kachina and Buffalo Park but never pushed myself. As my own pain persisted, now coupled with fear of being unable physically to take care of my family, I knew I needed to try something different.
Once I got cleared by my doctors and physical therapist for more exercise, I started exploring what I could do. I found all of the back-to-school specials at exercise studios in Aspen Place at the Sawmill: Stretch Lab, Cyclebar, and Club Pilates. The studios all offered free 20-30 minute introductions. The friendly and encouraging vibes at each place made me less self-conscious about my size and my abilities and made me want to try to do some new-to-me exercises.
I want to tell you that I started slowly, but I didn’t. No one ever told me that exercise could be addicting. I cycled two days a week, did Pilates once a week, and did assisted stretching twice a month. Soon, I couldn’t miss a class. I threw in some yoga, picked up an extra cycle class, and committed to membership passes. On those days I just wanted to go home, take a nap, and make a vat of macaroni and cheese, I cycled. On those days I couldn’t wake up, I dragged myself to Pilates. Little by little, I had to exercise. I couldn’t miss a class.
Working with dedicated professionals in fun environments made me wonder why exercise never really stuck for me before. It’s more than moving my body; each instructor is motivational in different ways. One practices mindfulness and helps me pay close attention to my body, one pushes me to do small intervals of speed and strength, and one blasts music and reminds me that I’m a “bad bitch” who can do anything. All three work together to inspire me to do better not for them, but for me.
It’s taken almost a full year—and four months of a variety of exercise classes—to get as close to a functioning body as this middle-aged woman can have at this point in my life. I feel much stronger both mentally and physically and also have a better sense of what I’m capable of.
This exercise journey has become a metaphor for my whole life. It seems that I’ve been relying on episodic “hysterical strength” to push through difficult times rather than building and maintaining strength overall. It’s been good to have supporters and coaches along the way but the greatest lesson for me has been learning that I have always been stronger than I knew. Even though external events gave me the push I needed to begin, continuing this journey now is up to me. I want to keep riding and stretching to see just how far I can go.
