I have pain.

I spent several hours over the past two days cutting back the climbing rose arch that covers the front of our house.  It was #7-C on The List, so it felt good to get it done.  A real sense of accomplishment comes with reducing 30 ft. of diseased and bug-ridden plant life to two bins of wanna-be compost.

But now, the pain.

I shouldn’t have pain.  The job wasn’t that strenuous.  Still, my shoulders are whining, and my back refuses to bend.  My sinews are in open rebellion because I have yet to achieve #17 on The List: Reclaim body from a year of neglect and failed exercise programs.

Perhaps that one should have come before the yard work.

I’m not in terrible shape.  I only take up one seat on public transportation.  I can go on a hike without oxygen and a medevac chopper on standby.  I can even do 20 chin-ups over the course of a month.  But I’m not where I want to be, and as I cruise through the land of 40-something, I see that I’m not magically getting any stronger.

It’s not that I haven’t tried.  Oh, I’ve tried.  I’ve joined gyms.  The problem is you have to go.  Simply holding the membership card in your hand and chanting, “I am fit, I am strong, I am the pinnacle of physical perfection” isn’t enough.  Trust me.

I bought home exercise equipment.  That’s better, because you don’t have to find time to go to the gym—the gym has been brought to you.  At great expense.  Treadmills, chin-up bars, sit-up-helper-devices—I’ve done all that.  Once I even procured a machine that sort of combined rowing, squats, and jumping jacks into one fluid motion that was guaranteed to create the perfect you.  It is amazing how much the perfect me resembled the dumpy me.  It’s also amazing how much laundry you can hang from the handlebars of a treadmill.

Then I decided that I didn’t need all that equipment anyway—which was good, because it was buried under piles of stuff.  All I needed was the basics: pushups, sit-ups, and chin-ups.  With these simple exercises, I could release the inner Adonis.

In the end, the issue is not the push-ups, the sit-ups, or the chin-ups.  The issue is the get-ups.

The problem is a simple one—I love sleep.  Sleep and I have a great relationship, one to which I am fully committed.  I’m a good dad, and a fair-to-middlin’ husband, but I am a deeply devoted sleeper.  Given that there are limited hours in the day, exercise usually comes at the expense of sleep.

Exercise Vs. Sleep…what do you think happens?

But, since I want to be able to play with my grandkids someday, and not just as a teething toy, I will try again.  I will begin today with some reasonable, daily exercise.  I won’t overdo, because I don’t want to spend the rest of the week cramped into a fetal position.  Let’s see if we can’t make some progress at turning the tenement into a temple.

Anybody want to join me?

I’ll check back with you on Friday.