Sometimes I feel like I am in a rented body. I have no idea what I paid for it, but I know eventually the lease is going to run out and I will be on the street with no place to live.

I do not remember the price I paid for this rental, but it must have been very large. From the time I was a small child, into my early thirties, a lot of my time was directed towards making it break. There were the childhood things like jumping, diving, flying, and other things that these bodies were not designed to do, at least not originally.

In my teens, it was poor diet, over exertion, stress, contact sports, fights, and various forms of exploratory poisoning. Some of these things I continued doing, others I left when I decided there was no pay off and I stopped them after the first time.

Then it was on to the military, spending cold wet nights in above ground foxholes, eating cold food, or no food at all, over stressing certain areas of life where some people should not try to do. Mix that up with family and call ahead a decade or so.

Somewhere along the line, I traded off more of the things I was doing for better options. I started taking more risks, like bicycling in city traffic, and floating around big lakes in small inner tubes in the name of fishing. Then it was kayaking, and now making full circle, I want to wander around the wilderness again exploring. There is always so much to see and things I have never done waiting for me.

Although I do not have the flexibility and resistance I did when I was younger, I have more than made up for it in experience. I really do not need to jump across, and down ten feet to a ledge just to get a better view. Then realizing when I was done, getting up again was not going to be as easy as jumping down. The view where I am at will be perfectly adequate. I also don’t need to hike in ten miles to get away from people, because I never really did find a place, where someone was not there before me already. I also won’t need to climb trees just to see the tops of other trees in a quest for a really good view.

Now, when I get the chance to wander like I did when I was young, I will have more time to look around and enjoy what is right there rather than looking to the next hill and wondering what is on the other side. If I manage to get lost like I did when was young, I won’t be walking a long way in the direction I think I need to go in. This time around I will have at least a compass, and common sense enough to sit down and figure out where I should be at before I start walking. That is an advantage of older feet, they take you everywhere you need to go, but they can complain loudly if they think you are abusing them.

All in all, this body has been pretty amazing. Whatever it cost me to rent, I know I have the better end of the deal. I this body were machinery made by the best machinists in the world at the time, it never would of held up like it has. Everything still works almost as well as it did when it was new, but of course a few parts are a little worn. But nothing a few aspirin can’t fix most of the time.

I know by the time the lease expires, I will have received full use on my rental body. I just hope the place where I am going is a good place to be, and the things I love to do are not too far away.