Limitations

# Chapter 110

We finally made it here. I am far too old to be driving that distance in a single day. There are things that mental will can’t really help you accomplish, and physical limitations are one of those things. On the other hand, if I hadn’t applied mental will to the whole trip for the entire week leading up to the 12 hour drive, then I don’t think I would have made it, so mental will did definitely affect the trip, but it can only go so far. Mental will was yesterday’s chapter, today’s chapter is more about physical limitations and age, so I am straying a bit afar here, but it occurred to me as I started writing this morning that mental will played a significant role in our long long trip on the road yesterday.

This trip between Georgia and Pennsylvania is one we have been making for decades, so the trip hasn’t changed, but we have. We can’t sit as long and be comfortable, we can’t focus as long and be safe, our bodies can’t handle the rigors of long distant road travel, the limited movement that is afforded and the constraints are deadly. We are much more fragile than we once were. These are the inevitable realities of aging. Even though we are actively working toward being younger next year, the steady decline of our physical capacities is real and not simply a mental construct.

But you learn to compensate, you simply have no other choice. So for the last 5-6 years I have been traveling the GA - PA route in a two day trip rather than a one day trip. But this time my wife was with me and she definitely is struggling with accepting the limitations that we are facing, and that she is especially facing. This trip hurt her much more than me, but she has completely forgotten about all that pain, even though it was so very recent.

Compensate people!