I’m getting older. Gray hair sprouts at my temples. Heck, it is sprouting all over. Even my once dark chin hairs (oh yeah, y’all, don’t even pretend you don’t have them too, you ladies of a certain age) have turned a blessed white. No longer do they prickle like flecks of pepper dotting my jawline. I guess the face is one place a woman doesn’t mind her hair lightening with age, except when she catches the glimpse of one gleaming in the light of the vanity mirror in her car.

I also ache more. The injuries endured over the years revisit me more frequently in the form of chronic nags here and there.

I have tightness in my left ankle, thanks to a broken leg now decades past. When a storm is coming, I sometimes feel extra crunches and zings of shooting pain.

I have a crooked right pinky finger from years of playing the trumpet and keeping it hooked around the grip. It doesn’t hurt. Yet. But it looks pretty cool.

I also have an unruly lower back, first strained pretty badly while learning to water ski. I’ve pulled it many times over the years, sometimes from lifting something heavy, but more often from turning the wrong way while putting clothes in the dryer, chasing a kid, drying my hair, living life, etc.

But the worst kind of hurt is not from old injuries, hard work, or exercise. The burn in my quads after a run or the tightness in my arms after planking or push-ups is a blessed gift of God, for at least I can still move enough to feel the good kind of pain.

It’s the pain from disuse that hurts the most.

Back pain after hoeing weeds in the garden is a different kind of pain than the pain that comes from sitting in a car after driving 700+ miles in one day.

Long-haul truckers: you have my utmost respect. I had the good fortune to travel to Yellowstone and other points west this summer via Eisenhower’s great national interstate system and various two-lane backroads. I saw the purple mountains’ majesty and the amber waves of grain, all while reeking of Biofreeze.

My lower back issues progressed into hip and nerve problems. I felt like my legs might pop off the hip sockets at the end of each day. Thank you, ibuprofen, you helped me make it through. Two weeks of stretching and moving restored some normalcy, but a day of driving last week brought the pains back. I hope they’re not here to stay, but if my parents’ arthritis issues are any indication of what I have to look forward to, then I need to invest in pharmaceutical stock.

So, the choice: I think I’d rather my legs burn from doing squats than feeling like they’re going to detach from my body like a Mrs. Potato Head. Except Mrs. Potato Head doesn’t have legs. It’s just feet. But you get it, I hope.

Let’s extend it, not Mrs. Potato Head’s legs. Hasbro would need to make major mathematical calculations to get the physics just right, and I think Mrs. Potato Head is beautiful just the way she is.

These pains are more than physical. Do you make the sacrifice and do the work which, while challenging, will ultimately satisfy, or do you give in to laziness or excuses or whatever keeps you sitting on your hands, continuing to stew in excuses? You can feel a good kind of hurt now or endure a regret later.

Do you take the time now out of your schedule to work with or play with your kid, or do you put it off because you’ve got another obligation (playing on your phone, binging a show, etc.)? You can put yourself second now or have a child who remembers that you put him or her last.

Do you go back to school and get that degree? I know it would mean a loan, or night or weekend classes, but it would also mean a better life for your family in the long run. Figure out what it would take to make it work. It will be worth it.

I know which kind of hurt I choose. Give me the first variety, the kind that means getting up and doing something for someone else. Or maybe doing what I know the good Lord wants me to do instead of making some lazy excuse.

I’m feeling the burn. There are no quick short cuts through to the other side. I hope to be in it for the long haul. Maybe you will ride shotgun with me.

Unlike cross-country travel. God bless America, but I will fly next time.