The day I turned 74 I went to the gym. It is a hundred meters from where I first worked, as cub reporter for a Cebu-based news agency.
Fifty-seven years ago, I used to sneak inside the compound that housed the gym, with our messenger and his bicycle, until a security guard chased us out after I crashed into a plant pot. I never got to learn how to ride a bike.
The guards are friendlier and more welcoming this time.
The irony did not escape me. Fifty-seven years ago, I wanted to bike not because I needed the exercise but because I envied my bike-riding friends. That day I went to the gym. I needed it, and badly.
Actually, long, long before the day I turned 74.
Gone are the days when I crisscrossed the waterfront on foot covering my beat before walking back to the editorial office on Ramos five days a week.
So are the days when I could run up five flights of stairs without pause, play as many sets of tennis or badminton as were needed to finally score a win, and jog 25 laps in Abellana.
The spirit is willing, the muscles are weak.
I have had two serious health issues in the last 20 years, I am 10 kilos over my “fighting weight,” my waistline has “progressed” from svelte to corpulent, and whereas in the past, I could wander in the house even if blind-folded, my family not too recently had to have railings installed to prevent me from stumbling.
I still walk in Abellana but with a limp. I could no longer read fine print inspite of a lens replacement two years ago, I had to learn how to lipread to mask my impaired hearing, and Gaviscon and Omiprazole had become a constant companion ever since an “acidic stomach” became known as GERD.
It can be frustrating but I am not complaining. I prayed for a long life and God heard my prayer. The inability to do the things that I used to do with ease is part of the package. If I wanted my inconvenience more bearable, I had to do it myself.
Which was why I went to the gym.