Loud Skin
So this morning, I’m out for a run with one of my clients when something unexpected happened. I discovered something about myself that’s meaningful and real and to be honest…not all that flattering.
Here’s what happened: About 15 minutes into the jog, kibitzing over the details of our weekend, I hear this strange and unfamiliar noise…coming from, get this, the upper portion of my body (I said upper portion.) It was a flapping sound, like the kind you hear when…well I don’t exactly know what to compare it to because I never heard it before. And I felt something too! What the hell was that? Initially, I decided to ignore it. I had never heard a noise coming from this region of my body before (oh, grow up!) so I shirked it off as an anomaly, a one time thing, so why fixate, right? I let it go, moved on, and initiated a fascinating dialogue (typical me) with my client, and…there it goes again! This time, it was a double-flap noise. Like flap, flap, then nothing. But this time, I could hone in and identify the exact area, not merely the general quadroon.
It was coming from the portion of my body, right above my tank top and directly under the arm pit, due west of my left breast! I don’t think there is a name for this fleshy part, so for our purposes we’ll just refer it as the: “Prairie-Flatlands, located on the Outskirts of my Breasts,” or “PFLOB.” Check this out: The flappity-flap noise came from the swinging of my arms as I ran and this area, my PFLOB was making contact with my inner/upper arms as they went rhythmically back and forth. Horrors! Now I’m no Professor of Biomechanics or anything, so I don’t know, scientifically speaking, what actually caused the noise. Maybe the motion created a wind tunnel, or maybe it was the suction between two squishy parts, or maybe just the mere smacking of two loose objects. I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that my PFLOB and my inner-arm were making contact and I could hear it!
Are you kidding me? I’m a Personal Trainer! And although I’m not the militaristic, supplement drinking, boring-at-parties-cause-all-I-talk-about-is-health-and-fitness-and-good-carbs-versus-bad-carbs type of trainer…
I am.
None the less.
A health conscious individual that practices what I preach….most of the time. So, now you’re probably wondering: How did I resolve the clapping sounds that came, (and will probably come again) from the clashing of my two body parts, what with being a trainer and all. It’s simple. I processed it for a minute and then let it go. You have to. I’m 50! Okay 51, whatever, and there’s not a thing I can do to prevent my skin from losing its spring. (Like I said, I’m no Biomechanics Guru, but I think the sound had something to do with loose skin.)
The thing about people in our culture today is that they’re either hyper-focused on every little imperfection that actually makes them who they are, or they completely don’t care at all. I say, do what you can, make an effort to be the best you can be (too Oprah-ish?) and let go of the stuff you can’t change…
Cause it will make you crazy.
Oh, and really, really boring at parties.
