Showing my age

I always used to think that I was mature for my age. According to my mother, I started speaking earlier than I was supposed to. I never went through a particularly rebellious phase, and my childhood was marked by trying to be an adult. Teachers were always impressed with how nuanced my thinking seemed compared to those at my age (until I reached law school of course, whereupon I became mediocre).

Even though I've always tried to be a "grown-up," mentally, I never before realized how much my age mattered to me physically before, though. My heart has never been what I might call in tip-top shape. Once, when I was a sophomore in college, I went out for a run around the neighborhood on a nice fall evening. I ran for about a half-mile and then stopped because I was feeling strangely. I could 'see' my heartbeat. Literally. My vision pulsed with my heart and when I checked my heart-rate, I measured it as being 244 beats per second. Yes, you read that number correctly. Even now, when I go jogging, I'll check my heart-rate and find it around 160-180 after a block or two.

For the past 2 or 3 years, I've been experiencing periodic bouts with a dull ache in my chest that a computer medical program I have diagnosed as angina. This (potential) condition has given me a reason to become more healthy, but as if to give me a new incentive to ensure that I lose weight, this afternoon while waiting for my old high school friend to show up, I experienced a bizarre sensation.

I don't really have many words to describe it, but imagine if someone could tie a rope to your heart, and then give it a sudden jerk, causing it to jump forward in your body for a second. Now accompany that with intense chest pains over your heart and a rapid heartbeat for a few minutes right afterward.

I'm hoping it was nothing, but I sure wish I could afford health insurance right now. At 25, I'm too young to be having heart problems.