When did I stop doing cartwheels?

As I were waiting for my eldest daughter to finish swimming, I sat on the grass and watched my youngest doing cartwheels and back flips. She was smiling and giggling. She tried over and over again to do a back flip. Most of the time it looked closer to a summersault except her knees were bent so that her shins were at right angles to her thighs.

When was the last time I did a cartwheel? I can’t remember. I don’t think I consciously made a decision to stop doing them. It’s like I crossed some threshold between childhood and adulthood and just forgot about cartwheels. I don’t know if it was a gradual thing. Maybe I went from doing cartwheels every day to once a week to once a month to once a year and finally just forgot to do one the next year.

I thought about whether I would do a cartwheel now. I decided I wouldn’t. Granted I am an older mom, but it’s more than that. I’m frightened now of tumbling head over heals. I don’t think it’s anything new. I think I would have been frightened to do it 10 years ago. When did I start becoming frightened of injury myself?

Cartwheels used to make me happy just like they make my daughters happy. How many of those wonderful things have I abandoned? Am I destined to abandon even more as I get older? Maybe I can recover just a few of them.