Ouch. Whine. Kvetch. Complain. Whine. Ache.

I took a ballet class today. It was an act of friendship: Mary was subbing at Steps, and needed to pull in the paying students.

Ouch. Whine. Complain. It's been 2, maybe 3 years since I last took a ballet class, longer since I finished one. I was worried about my knees. And my Achilles tendons. And my feet (they cramp up in Pilates class when I try to point them). Everything else, I felt confident that I could "do less" and not hurt anything.

Complain. Whine. Ache. I think I made it to tendus before I felt like I had had enough. I was working on determination after that. But that still left 75 minutes of determination that my poor body had to withstand.

Ouch. Whine. I did rather well, really: no ginching, no crippling muscle spasms, no embarrassing spills. Oh, well until the big jumps, where I heard the voice of Willy Burmann Past: "What happened to you, Cynthia? You used to be able to jump."

Aches. Pains. Whine. Complain. My calves are seizing. My butt hurts. My back is worn out. My knees are saying, "We're okay now, but don't you ever do that to us again." Ballet is hard work. High impact. Working out at the gym is about "major muscle groups;" ballet is about tiny hip rotators and the outside 1/3 or your lower calves and the articulation of your fourth toe.

Owie. Whine. Ache. Pain. You know, it's not that I hurt all that much more than I did 10 years ago, it's that I decided 5 years ago that that much pain was too much, I had tolerated it for too long, and I just don't want to work that hard.

I'm going to log off right now and go make myself a cocktail. At 46, I'm too damned old to make a comeback.

(But if Miss Mary has another class to teach...)