Middle age and body love are not mutually exclusive

I can TBT without regret. I didn't even realize back then that I was skinny! But I love my body more now. Having a body has become so much more than fussing over surface and visual appeal.

I have trained this body to endure grueling drills, to be resilient and pliable, to win against viruses and stress. I am a warrior. I have learned when to coddle and when to talk tough to it. I am as wise as the ancients when I mother my own body.

This body moves with assuredness when I teach a room of distracted dance students. This body melts into embrace when touch and wordless comfort are needed. This body holds still on the mat, observing in silence, awakening in wonderment, unfolding in surrender.

This body suspends the gag reflex to clean out the litter box. This body unequivocally rejects an excess of sugar -- by breaking out in hives! No mistaking that message.

This body permits, nay, compels me to experience and process my emotions. It will not stay defeated. It will lie spent for a season while my spirit licks its wounds, but it is the body that will arise and move first, to exhale in ever lengthening, growly sighs, with increasing urgency until my spirit comes alongside.

This body catalogs in sensory memory the pheromones of my beloved, the perfume of my hybrid Jackson & Perkins roses, the precious pronunciation of toddler talk, the density of my Mom's flan.

It is a single body among so many, but the only one assigned to me. It is both vitally important to preserve in good health but immediately disposable once my energy departs it. Images of it will stand in for me in recall when I myself am gone.

When being nice isn't always wise

Is niceness overrated? Could I have been shielding myself with it? Am I grounded enough in wisdom now to know when to step out from behind it and return fire? If I don't return an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth in certain situations—strictly as a mirror, you understand, without the baggage of vengeance—have I wasted the teachable moment? Have I allowed nastiness to spread?

Let's say I've been chosen as the target and my warrior heart took that bullet and vaporized it: If I watch the bully walk away to find another, weaker target, have I neglected my duty to humanity? By duty I don't mean stepping in front of the next target and taking that bullet again. I mean taking Godzilla down. Before it goes on its rampage.

Is this the new lesson I'm supposed to be learning? First I learned to see what the world looks like when it's loved. Then I learned to spot where love is missing. Satya—Sanskrit for truth; to see things as they are. Now I think I'm being called to act when necessary. And my need to be nice, to be loved, needs to be sacrificed. Alrighty then. Oh, by the way—only nice people can comment. haha!

When commitment leads to mistreatment

It is the irony of (many) human relationships that the more they think they have you the less they treat you like the gem you've been to them.

The conquest is done, they have you in their pocket; on to the next chase.

The younger mistress, the new star employee, the client they're trying to land, the novelty of an untested partnership. Quite a catch. Dazzling new possibilities. More money. That air of unavailability. And the newbie won't know all their faults (yet)! They guzzle the hero worship like cold beer on a sweltering afternoon.

This is how the older brother of the Prodigal Son felt. What, no fatted calf for me, after I have served you all these years?

They've asked for your total loyalty but still lust for the next bright shiny object of their ambition. As a former 40-something bachelor acquaintance once put it, "There might be someone better out there."

Undoubtedly, there is someone better out there. Better than they are. Someone who practices gratitude, who expresses appreciation, who gives you the benefit of the doubt and never takes your commitment for granted.

Sometimes we are the neglected, the overlooked, the underappreciated locked into what started as a bond but feels like bondage.

Sometimes we are the ungrateful wretches and don't know or don't care that we are. And we are in a prison of a different sort.