Where did it go?

Where did it go?

There’s a song by Pete Seeger, Get Up And Go, in which the chorus goes like this:

How do I know my youth is all spent?

My get up and go, has got up and went.

But in spite of it all, I’m able to grin

And think of the places my get up has been.

This begs the question, where did my get up, go to? I am certainly willing to do many of the things that I had attempted in my youth. As far as I’m concerned all that it involves is to get up and go do it. 

There’s the saying in the Bible, Matthew 26:41 “The spirit is indeed willing, but the body is weak.” In Matthew’s case, he was talking about temptation. In my case, it has to do with motivation and the reality that my body is a lot older now. 

As much as I would like to jump out of bed, get on a bike and take an aerobic 5-mile trek each morning (which in fact I never did do in my youth), I instead work on stretching my calf muscle each morning which has cramped up overnight, so I can get out of bed. 

Do you know what it’s like to stay up very late at night watching a movie, writing a song, or reading a book and then waking up early full of energy to attack another day of work or play? Yeah, neither do I.

I do have an Apple Watch. It tracks my steps (at least 6,000 a day), my exercise (at least 30 minutes a day), moves (at least 400 active calories burned a day) and stands (I’m supposed to stand for at least one minute during an hour, at least 12 times during my waking day).  I’m usually pretty good at doing them all. In fact, I have a 370+ day streak on my Moves. 

Of course one of the reasons that I do accomplish these tasks, is because I am the one that sets the goals. The Apple Watch actually recommends that I do at least 10,000 steps a day and over 600 moves. I like feeling that I’m having success.  I’ve also noticed that if I select “Other” as my type of exercise which is listed as a catch-all choice if you’re not walking, running, biking, or swimming, my watch will register whatever I’m doing as exercise time. Did you know that washing dishes can then be considered exercise? So does housework, which in some cases really is exercise. Moves are a bit harder to get, but that’s why I keep the goal at 400. As for stands, that’s generally easy to get, unless I’m stuck driving somewhere for 2 hours or have 3-½ hours of zoom meetings to sit through. That too can sometimes be averted by swinging my arm back and forth while I’m sitting for a minute. My Apple Watch thinks I’m standing and moving. 

Though I do enjoy manipulating my Apple Watch, I’m not fooling myself.  I wouldn’t say that my get up and go is gone; It is just taking its time. More like getting up and going slow. 

Just like your new car comes with a scheduled maintenance and service manual, So do you. Or at least you should. 

After all, I’m over seventy years old, and even though I can’t find the maintenance/service manual that must have come at my birth, my service stations, better known as all the medical professionals I see, seem to keep track of my aches and pains, and medications that I need to keep my get up going. I keep track of all that stuff too. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with reliving past experiences. That’s why I keep writing about them. 

And just to reassure myself, I do follow the advice that Pete Seeger gives in the last verse of his song. 

I wake up each morning and dust off my wits

Open the paper and read the obits

If I’m not there, I know I’m not dead

So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. 

How do I know my youth is all spent?

My get up and go, has got up and went.

But in spite of it all, I’m able to grin

And think of the places my get up has been.