What Now?

In my last post, I casually mentioned that I didn’t want to enter my Golden Years a broken, hot mess. That seems ambitious but the reality of it is that both your body and Father Time have other plans. And they really don’t give a shit what you think.

Let’s start with my rotator cuff injury. While healed, it’s still not 100% pain-free meaning that I can no longer comfortably lie back in my La-Z-Boy recliner with my left hand resting behind my head – a thing I do when unwinding. Well, used to do at least because whenever I attempt to do it, pain is what I feel. Moving my arm certain ways also does it but it’s only in extreme cases as in moving it ways I don’t typically move it. It’s tolerable but if it gets any worse…blah.

Then there’s my most recent injury that every guy tries to avoid. Yeah, that one. The muscle strain below the belt or at least that’s what I think it is. The pain isn’t only there; it goes up into my hip and lower abdomen and can get rather uncomfortable. I suppose another visit to the doctor is in order to confirm my suspicions, but it’s nowhere near as bad as when I had a hernia in the same area. That, my friends, was absolutely painful. We’re talking 8 on the Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale. Thankfully, after surgery many years ago, the pain never came back.

With my current strain, my morning walks have become much slower (over 16 minutes per mile; my average is 15:45 or so), and I’m considering walking every other day or even taking a week off. We’ll see what comes of it.

And there’s the random body aches that show up. For example, I knocked my pinky finger knuckle against something and the pain I felt was almost like I had already hit and bruised it previously. But I don’t remember doing anything to it so why it hurt so much was beyond me.

Ah, aging is getting fucking hysterical. I’m still committed to staying active no matter what but sometimes I just reach a point and say, “Goddamnit, what now?” and try to carry as normal – or as normally as I can before my body tells me to quit.

Oh and on the plus side, I’m down 10 pounds now and fit into a size 36 pair of skinny jeans. For those who don’t know, I used to wear size 48 jeans. Yup. Since giving up meat as a staple of my diet, I’m starting to see some changes to my body in terms of overall tone, and my face is getting thinner.

And Ann said the skinny jeans make me look like I have bird legs.

I think I’ll take it as a compliment…