Comfortable in One’s Own Skin

I think I am now comfortable in my own skin. (Silly statement, isn’t it really? How can you be comfortable in anyone else’s skin — unless, perhaps, you’re Buffalo Bill, that serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs who skins his victims.)

How do we become uncomfortable in our skins? All men peacock themselves in their mating displays, but that’s only gilding the lily. Male identity is formed by what men do, so the more permanent changes occur when they make their external selves fit the roles ordained by their jobs and the person inside gets squeezed out of shape. Hard calouses eventually replace the blisters where chaffing occurs and numbness masks the pressure points as the essential self is re-formed to fit the shell it must now inhabit. Soon, you get so desensitised you don’t feel misshapen at all. (Paul warned of this when he wrote in Romans: ‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’) Many men don’t even realise this sea-change is happening until they step off the career carousel, or get shoved off — sometimes because of ill health or a crisis of some sort, but usually because of their age.

When I turned 65 I began to rediscover who I really was, and it wasn’t the pretentious prat who pranced through my adulthood and left me to build my senior years on a foundation as solid as a Dartmoor bog. More important, it wasn’t the person my wife thought she had married. For the most part, she has set aside any disappointments and got on with it.

As for me, I was growing more content with the person I discovered inside my skin every day. The trouble was, the skin itself was making me feel very uncomfortable, and showing signs of wear and misuse. I realised that my body was unlikely to last as long as I planned to need it unless I took better care of it. My friend Ray, who had been diagnosed with ALS last year, was able to come to my 65th birthday party. Seeing how challenging life was quickly becoming for him and his family made me think that I owed it to those around me to take better care of myself while I could. But it was my June doctor‘s appointment that finally decided me.

Doctor Tina sat me down and gave me a severe talking-to. Now a type 2 diabetic with high cholesterol counts, as well as an asthmatic with the lung capacity about 55% of that of an average 65-year-old Canadian (not Swede, mind you), I had to face up to the reality of my impending demise unless I did something to change the course of events nature was planning for my seriously neglected body. So that’s when I decided to eat better, do more, aim higher, and plan for a longer — and healthier — retirement. Three months on, I am down more than 35 pounds in weight, have more energy, and have started a blog. It’s enough for me to say today that I am more ‘comfortable in my own skin’ now than at any time in the previous twenty years.

The next thing I have to do is recapture some of the optimism and verve of my first 45 years. Somehow I think that’s going to be a lot more difficult than losing a few pounds.