Yesterday, I Turned 51 and Made Myself Do a Back Flip

It was my birthday wish to stop being so scared.

Yesterday was my birthday. As I usually do, I took a birthday run. It is only different than a regular run in that I think about what special thing I can do to feel like I’m still a factor in the world. Usually, I take a video of me doing a handstand or something.

The thing is, I do handstands all the time. There is nothing special about them.

What would be special?

The answer popped in my head around mile three: I should get on the trampoline and do a back flip. I immediately dismissed it. There was no way I was doing that.

How long had it been since I’d done flips on our trampoline? I used to be a gymnast, and had kept up with doing flips well into my 40s. I definitely remembered jumping with the kids during Covid.

But then I’d hurt my back in the spring of 2022. I was lifting a too-heavy gardening pot—so stupid, because I know better!—and wound up in the emergency room, sure I was dying. It caused nerve damage. My right quad is still numb. Pain shoots down my left leg if I don’t stretch after every run.

I’ve been plagued by fear of injury ever since. I’m careful how I put my shoes on. Careful to move deliberately when I do yoga. Careful to always use proper form when I do strength classes.

At 51, I am ridiculously, redundantly careful.

So a back flip?

No.

Except, yes. I couldn’t stop thinking about it over the next few miles. Because I needed to do something I was afraid of. Just to show myself that fear didn’t always get the last word.

The list of things I’m afraid of now is long. I have both big life fears and big world fears. What I mean is, I’m scared both for me, and for other people. That is the worst kind of scared, because you can’t really escape.

A back flip wouldn’t solve it. But it would be something.

After my run, I sat on a conference call for an hour, barely paying attention (if you’re my client, I’m sure it wasn’t you I was on the call with). All I could think about was going out to the trampoline in our back yard.

Finally, I clicked off Zoom, put my shorts back on, and headed outside.

I did a series of awkward looking jumps to activate my kinesthetic juju. Then I did some back handsprings. Yes, my body remembered.

My calves were shaking and my hands were sweaty. But without overthinking it, I bounced, reached, pulled, tucked, and rotated, like I’ve always known how to do. The first flip I did had me bounce backward into the net behind me. The next one, I bounced forward into the net in front me. Not exactly graceful.

And then I found it. The ease of flipping. Like I was twelve or twenty or forty again. Obviously, I’ll let you see.

(Yes, we do have two trampolines. You’re not imagining it.)

Do I feel less scared about all the other things in my life now? No. But it was a good reminder for me that sometimes things don’t seem available anymore, and then they are. The challenges feel insurmountable, and then you have a thought, which leads to an action, and another day passes and then it’s a week, a month, a year, and things have shifted in ways you helped create and the universe conspired for you a bit, when you listened to the thought.

Tomorrow, my real birthday treat happens. I’m headed with my sister to Nashville to see Liz Gilbert in conversation with Ann Patchett about Gilbert’s new memoir, All the Way to the River. They are two of my favorite writers and I’m very excited! Obviously, we’ll first stop at Parnassus to be among the books.

Judi