Many of my readers know that for a significant part of my life, I wanted to be a successful musician.
I sang, played guitar (sort of) and wrote songs; hundreds and hundreds of songs.
And my perception of what I sounded like back then was something less than what I wanted to sound like.
I’d hear other singers (many of whom were popular in the 90s and early 2000s) and I’d hear this raspy quality that I wanted to have for myself.
Mind you, I wasn’t a trained singer, I just loved singing.
Over the years, due to age and likely due to the damage I had done to my body through drug abuse, my voice did change and I did indeed get a raspier quality to it.
And once I achieved it, it wasn’t quite the way I wanted it to sound.
It wasn’t raspy the way I heard or wanted to emulate in others, it was (in my opinion) this edgy, sometimes pitchy raspiness.
And I’d record songs and play them back and find that maybe I just didn’t like the sound when I finally had the ability to achieve it.
I also found that I was far less unforgiving about the sound of my voice. So much so that it made it more difficult to sit down with my guitar and play for pleasure anymore.
I find that people regard their bodies (and to a further extent) their “ideal weight” in a similar fashion.
Perhaps once upon a time, you weighed X, and you believe in your heart of hearts, that getting back to that weight would give you happiness and restore your sense of self esteem.
But our bodies change over time, as they naturally “should” and, I hate to say it, but there’s a chance that the body you’re trying so desperately to get back to isn’t a body that you can maintain without making yourself miserable in the process.
I don’t ask potential clients anymore about what weight they want to get to because the reality is 1) they may not be willing to do the work it takes to get there 2) they can live a more fulfilling life somewhere north of their ideal weight 3) what they think they should weigh may no longer be a “healthy” weight.
What many people invariably find is that if they are successful at getting to that arbitrary number that perhaps it just doesn’t “wear” like it used to.
And that can be a profound disappointment.
So, the adage “the grass isn’t always greener” applies here. Sometimes the reality we think we want isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
As for me, I’ll take the nuances of my raspy, edgy voice and make the best of it…as I hope you’ll do on your journey of self improvement.
Jason Leenaarts 
sometimes, the grass really is greener but maybe, more often than not, that’s because it’s been fertilized with bullshit. i struggle with the same weight loss issues now with slower recovery times and the seemingly normal amount of leisurely consumption of food and drink that comes with age. never got a raspy voice, though. 😀
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“fertilized with bullshit”…I’ll be stealing that line!! You are right though, the slower recovery times are a real bear. As my Dad used to say: I don’t mind getting older, it’s the aging part that bothers me!
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the older i get, the more that’s understood!
definitely yours. i don’t recall if that’s something i came up with or, more likely, not. lol
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Love the BS comment. Isn’t that the truth!
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Just some thoughts. As someone lucky enough to have passed through a variety of age-related physical changes with more to come, (it’s better than the alternative) I can attest to the disappointment one might feel if the body image in your mind doesn’t quite match the image in the mirror or on the scale.
It might be carrying too much weight (whatever that means) or not really having or achieving an ‘attractive’ shape. For me it is mostly the latter. As somebody with a smaller frame, weight in and of itself, has never been too much of a bother. Sure, adding 10 or 15 pounds happened occasionally, but adding 40 or 50 would have led me to the hospital or 6 feet under. Instead, I wanted and still want to do something about my shape – adding more mass above the waist and take away mass at and below the waist, in other words fight gravity in order to stop looking quite like a pear.
Over the years I have continued to work away at that goal, but with gradually diminishing payoff. Fortunately, age also comes with some small wisdom and self-knowledge and an acceptance that things you want to change may not change very much no matter how much you try.
While I still work out, adapting my routine to accommodate for the aches and pains that never seem to go away completely, I have come to realize through all of this that the real question that we need to ask ourselves is why? Not why do we work out – that has physical and emotional benefits no matter our reasons. Rather, why do we want to achieve our goal to be thinner or to look more muscular. Why is that important to us? I am not saying it shouldn’t be important, but if we are going to set a goal that takes a lot of time and effort and sweat and pain, we probably should know the real answer to the why question. And that takes a much deeper look into the mirror.
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That last paragraph is gold! Miss you!
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