I don’t miss much when looking back at life and at ways I used to be. It’s a terrible trap to get caught up in that untapped potential. There’s potential now that requires my attention. But one aspect of myself I consider often is physical capability. Not health so much, as that is a more passive albeit crucial concern, but sheer physical prowess. The power of it. Feeling strong, agile, flexible. Invincible.

Which I don’t, at least not for a long while. What’re we in, March? That makes it nearly two years now that I’ve been on a self-indulgent avalanche. I still feel strong (and prove it to myself when I move furniture or easily hold someone down), but it’s the raw strength of good genetics and a high protein and fat diet. There is no flex to my sinews. I don’t feel like leather is stretching inside my arms or across my legs and back when I lift. Good in a pinch but not capable for a long stretch, let alone a lifetime.

And it’s important. There’s a big piece of my identity that was cultivated in a blue collar home, with a blue collar dad who was always active. Basketball, car and house maintenance, yard work. Simple in theory, but fuck me if I can do any of it for a sustained period of time. A fifty-five year old man can do it, but I can’t? The hell with that.

Anyway. Oedipal inadequacy, I know. My own set of daddy issues.

But, God, there was a time. I’d be up at 3:00 AM at the office, working on who knows what. Organizing disc builds while I wait for NDS carts to finish burning. I’d be there, sitting in some terrible office chair, and I’d just drop to the floor. One hundred push-ups. Felt like I could punch a hole through a wall. It felt good. The impact on my libido was similarly awesome.

I miss it. The absence of doubt in one’s capability. The one angle that I reflect upon in continual regret. If regret’s purpose is to give pause, it works damn well.