Pity Party for One…
I know this is a bit of catastrophizing, but for the first time in my life I’m really feeling my age. Fifty-nine. I’m sure my body complained when I was younger too, but I wasn’t aware of it in the same way. Back then I bounced back from injuries. A small cut healed in a day. I got out of bed and walked down stairs without a second thought.
Now? Not so much.
Everything hurts.
Some of this, I know, is temporary. I’ve had a cold for the last week. Nothing dramatic, but enough to knock me down. I took two days off work. I sat around. I didn’t exercise. And as always, not moving made everything worse. Weak, stiff, sluggish. The good news is I know how this part goes: next week I ease back into exercising, slowly rebuild, and claw my way back to baseline. It sucks, but it is what it is.
The broken arm is also mending. I’m just about a month out now. I still feel it, and I’m not eager to put weight on it, but I should be back in the pool next week just to keep the range of motion. That helps… except it also means that even though I feel weak, I can’t really do much strength training yet. So I wait. Another two or three weeks, then I start building strength again. Again, not permanent. Just annoying.
Then there are my wrists. Both of them. They’ve hurt like hell for a month. Some of it is clearly overuse — too many pull sets with paddles — but they don’t seem to be getting any better. It probably doesn’t help that I keep learning drums, playing bass, and generally refusing to ice anything or take NSAIDs like a responsible adult.
My knees have hurt for years. That’s not new. I walk down stairs one step at a time now — both feet on each step — which is a sentence I never imagined typing. The back of my right knee has been tinging for a while, and now the front of it has started popping. Because of course it has.
And to top it all off, I wake up in the morning and can’t fully straighten my arms.
That one is new.
It goes away after twenty minutes or so, but still. What the hell is that?
As if my body decided to pile on, my senses have joined the rebellion.
My hearing is going. I can’t really hear my wife unless she’s in the room and looking at me when she talks. If she says something from another room, it might as well be a different language. Half the time I respond based on context clues and hope for the best. This has not always gone well.
My eyes aren’t much better. I’ve had one cataract removed. That eye is still wonky, and the other one has a small cataract of its own, plus generally poor vision for good measure. My glasses help, of course, but most of the time I just wear cheaters — even when I’m not reading — so both eyes are equally fuzzy. I can’t see especially well, but it’s easier on my eyes. Low expectations, evenly distributed.
I know — none of this is catastrophic. I know a lot of it will pass. I know I’m still running, biking, swimming, working, living my life. This isn’t despair. It’s just… awareness. The slow, creeping realization that my body no longer quietly resets overnight. It negotiates. It complains. It needs warm-ups. And apparently, it now has opinions about sound and light.
Anyway. Pity party for one. No gifts, no RSVPs required. I’ll shut it down shortly and get back to doing what I always do: moving forward carefully, grumbling a bit, and pretending I’m still indestructible — just with more stretching, louder voices, and bigger fonts.