I have to get this out. I have been hiding and withholding it and it’s nagging at me. Every week I get closer and closer to the end state and I haven’t dealt with it publicly. It’s like that sliver of something right underneath the surface of the skin. It’s annoyingly there and evident to the touch, yet pulling it out is a near impossibility.
Well the fact of the matter is, I turn 60 in September 2017. Which means if I am to stay connected to my own work and to my beloved community of teachers, colleagues and students, I am going to have to own that shit with a new hashtag #PilatesOver60.
Damn. Damn. Dammit! Who wants to be 60? Who enjoys admitting they are at an age that sounds like the taste of vinegar? Dammit!
Now first of all, I know I don’t have the appearance, energy or lifestyle of the average 60 year old. I get that. It’s just the utterance and admittance of the milestone that is so damn disconcerting. Hell, I still don’t have an AARP membership card either! I was angry when that piece of mail started showing up – un-invited – to my mailbox!
This is the year that my mother would have turned 84, next month, in fact. I was her mirror image. In many more ways than most will ever know. She died when I was 30 and I started, at that time, (probably because of the seeming mirror reflection) shifting and changing quite a few things around in my living and life. Herbal concoctions, alternative approaches, fresher, cleaner and clearer became a bit of a subconscious insurance step toward getting past 54 years of age. This was my mother’s age at her death. She succumbed to colon cancer.
However, I always broke the rules of order, always bent the edges of the envelope a little more than most, always challenged the status quo with consistent push back and never, ever, followed the masses just to get to line on the right. Hell, I still do. It speaks to the rebel inside of me. I made a mid-course direction change at 45 years of age. I don’t think I truly realized how significant this act of defiance was until now. But, yes, somehow I changed the course and direction of my life (pursuing a teaching/training fitness professional role) and have been successful doing so for fifteen years; seven of these years, smack dab in the middle of my middle-aged life, with my own commercial Pilates studio.
If this sounds a little like a self-pep talk, I regret that. Just go with it. I’m still working out the “going public with being 60” part, and trying to find the win in the message and my thinking.
TruthSpeak
I am not a writer, I am a thinker and a doer. Truly, I am an creative experiential-ist. I move, jump and act. I also am very aware that it has taken me almost five months into this monumental year to put these words down so that I could own them and use them and continue my own experiential learning and sharing.
I am proud of the things I have done thus far and I want to wholly embrace all of the next steps that will be taken in the years in front of me. Pilates, health and fitness will be a complete and conscious part of that life. I say that as it’s my belief that we must give energy and life to our thoughts by uttering them aloud and writing them down. In this way, we state our intention and then and only then can we move forward to make it a reality. Our words then become plans that propel us to the next step.
So it is done. It is Spring 2017 and new life and beginnings are expected and anticipated. We are all a work in progress.
Here we go. #PilatesOver60
Gina Jackson, is a classically trained Pilates Teacher and has been teaching along the Gold Coast of Hudson and Bergen County, NJ for the past fifteen+ years.
Certified by Power Pilates of New York, Gina has trained with Master Teachers Bob Liekens, Susan Moran and Brett Howard; loved workshop training with Cary Regan and Blossom Leilani-Crawford and has particularly enjoyed listening to the personal stories as told by Pilates Elders, Kathy Grant and Lolita San Miguel.
An active teacher and blogger, Gina manages a private personal training business supporting a myriad of clients, teaching all to honor their health, strength and life with the principles of Pilates at its core.