Deterioration

After I broke my ankle, I never stopped to think of all the ways my life would be impacted.  Good news--I've lost about ten pounds.  (How, you ask?  Who the heck knows.  But some things are gifts and we shouldn't question.)  But on the downside, everything is falling apart.  My life, my house, my body.

I was old and withered already.  Well, I was slightly plump, so the withering wasn't quite so noticeable.  Ten pounds lighter and everything sags.  I thought losing weight would erase the jowls I was sporting below my face.  Nope.  Without the fatty underlayer, they just hang a little lower.  Likewise, my boobs.

Yesterday I decided my surgical incisions were healed enough that I could safely take a bath without encasing my leg in a garbage bag.  (Yeah, it was just as pretty a sight as you are imagining.)  With a clear view of both my legs in a side-by-side comparison, I realized what just one month of inactivity can do to muscles. 

For the past few years, in a desperate, futile attempt to regain my youthful, (almost) thin body, I've been working out regularly.  I dropped a few pounds (eventually) and although I was still mostly a short, wide ball of flab, I was rocking some well-toned calves.  But now my left leg looks as if it is attached to the body of someone who has been bedridden for twenty years.  And since my right leg has been doing all the work, it has become even more muscular.  Now I know how those women who test a new product on only one side of their faces must feel.

And no, as a kindness to anyone who might read this, I will not post a photo.