Ode to aging

When I lived in London, England, I lived in the suburb of Fulham. As well as being known for it's football team, Fulham is home to hundreds of young antipodeans in their adventuring twenties. I lived in a small house with nine other Australians and New Zealanders and for that short chapter, had a debaucherously good time. I remember blearily walking from some pub or club one evening and pausing to quietly puke into someone's flower garden, then resuming my amble home. I'm sure I didn't clean my teeth that night. I'm certain I didn't get up in the morning and consume something wholesome and offering me a stable glucose index.

And so, as I performed my nightly breast massage the other night in the shower (it's nowhere near as sexy as it sounds), I reflected how far I've come from that in-her-twenties-Camille. On the eve of my fortieth birthday, it's amusing to compare then and now. Then, I didn't floss with half as much regularity as now (though I lied about it with more fervour to my dentist). Then, I drank more alcohol than I ate solid food. Guinness supplies sufficient nutrients and vitamins, does it not? Then, exercise entailed dancing into the wee hours of the morning with a roomful of strangers.

Now? Well, it feels like I maintain my body as if it's a vehicle. I have my regular breast massage to ensure the implant doesn't prompt the natural tissue around it to solidify into scar tissue and hence become hard and in need of replacement. I do daily yoga, getting up before anyone else is awake to stretch away the sleep and keep the lymph nodes that remain in my one underarm healthy and doing their active draining duty. I ski three to four times a week and have cut back on alcohol, coffee and red meat. I use fancy moisturizers and cleansers. I floss regularly.

Some of these changes have been prompted by cancer and there are many more that I have been counselled to adopt. More protein. More avocado's. More legumes. Less wheat. Less sugar. Less dairy.

I know I should, but sometimes I just feel grateful to be resuming a somewhat normal life and I don't want to radically change the way I live my life. Perhaps it's foolhardy, but I really loved my pre-cancer life. I don't really want to change.

But change it has and I fluctuate between embracing that change (thank you chemo for the chic new hair-do), and burying my head in the sand. I'd rather not identify with all that cancer stuff.

And so I ponder if these changes in the way I tend to my body are a result of aging or my brush with mortality? Am I worshipping my aging body and tending to it with more consideration as it doesn't have the elasticity anymore to handle such abuse? Or am I celebrating my body as the vessel that has come through a near miss? It's dealt with a cocktail of poisons that I really can't comprehend and come out the other side with strength and grace and feeling pretty damn good.

Perhaps it's a combination of the two. Either way, friends, as I look to turning forty, I enjoy that this battered but strong body of mine can still get me out skiing with my kids. It may sport breasts whose nipples point in different directions and nails that flake like dandruff, but it feels alright. Ode to that, man.