Flabby Arms (the reclaiming)
I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I distinctly remember how it felt.
It was a few years back, on a particularly warm early spring day. The sun was out, and I was walking the dogs in the estuary. I decided to shed my long sleeves to let the sun hit my skin. As I walked, something caught my eye—something large, pale, and swinging in rhythm with my stride.
It was my own arm.
Oh my gosh, I thought, what has happened to me? I looked closer. The movement was coming from my upper arms—a flabby, pale, gelatinous motion that felt entirely foreign to the "me" I knew. I quickly pulled my sleeves back on to cover the "evidence."
To set the stage: it had been a long, cold winter. During one of the heavy rains, I had gone outside with a shovel to direct the runoff as it cascaded down the hill past my house. I had done this for years—slowing the water so it could sink into the earth rather than scour it. But that day, I had barely started when I had to stop. The strength simply wasn't there. It wasn’t that the task had grown harder; it was that I had somehow grown "less."
How had I missed this? I had always been in great shape. Granted, for the past few summers, I hadn't been wielding a pickax to remove giant rocks from the garden soil as I once had. I had spent more time riding a horse than doing heavy lifting. But I never imagined that strength could just… evaporate. I thought of the rainwater from months before and the shovel I couldn’t lift. No wonder, I thought. No wonder I had no strength. Where did the muscle go?
I went home and gave away all my favorite tank tops. "I can’t wear these again," I told myself with a heavy sense of finality. It felt inevitable. I resigned myself to the idea that this was just the "winter" of life—a slow, unavoidable fading.
Fast forward a few years. This morning, as with most mornings, I rode my bike to the local gym. While performing sets of martillos and volados, I caught my reflection in the mirror. My muscles have come back. After a year of showing up three or four times a week, I see shape again. It isn’t the thirty-year-old version of me—aging is a real and honest process—but it is a far cry from that five-years ago version of flabby resignation.
Looking at that reflection, I had to wonder: Why did I give up so easily? Why, the moment I noticed the "pale swinging" in the estuary, did I assume it was a permanent sentence? Why didn't I step in and reroute the situation the same way I used to reroute the rainwater? Why did I assume it was something that simply had to be accepted and endured, but surely not changed?
Almost a year into this reclaiming, I feel stronger—not just because my arms have gained muscle, but because I have gained the evidence of my own agency. I have realized that the "inevitable" is often just the "unattended."
This is the wider truth: Taking tangible, visible action makes a difference that transcends the physical body. It is the realization that you are capable of making a decision and seeing it through. That sense of empowerment is "leaky"—it doesn’t stay confined to the gym. It spills over. It spreads into how we handle our challenges, our goals, and our vision for the future.
When you have a visible sign that you are capable of accomplishing a challenging goal, you stop seeing yourself as a passenger to your own aging or life circumstances. You begin to see yourself as the architect. The strength in my arms is a nice result, but the strength in my "will" is the real prize. It is the quiet, steady knowledge that when the rain comes or the seasons change, I am not helpless. I am capable of picking up the shovel.
(If you’re looking to explore your own "reclaiming" and want to find more ways to move from passenger to rider in your own life, I invite you to join our monthly workshop. We gather once a month to dive deeper into these themes of agency, vision, and the tangible actions that shape our future. More info can be found at www.erindunigan.com )
