My parts don’t work quite like they used to, and I hate it

“Ow … ::shuffle:: … ow … ::shuffle:: … (unintelligible groan-like noises) … ::shuffle:: … (more unintelligible groan-like noises).”

The whole thing felt pretty pathetic — my right knee feeling so horrible that I needed to pull myself up by the rail and step with both feet onto each stair because I couldn’t push off that leg.

It wasn’t much better on the way down, either.

I know I had walked two miles followed by 90 minutes of pickleball for the second day in a row, but I hadn’t gone that hard.

It’s not that my knees haven’t barked at least a little bit for a long time — I have always tended to throw myself about in whatever sport I’m playing, so it happens — it’s that I couldn’t walk up and down the stairs of my house without being afraid I had blown one out or just worn it down to nothing.

I have gray hairs … not a lot, but a few on the temples.

College kids drop “sir” on me.

I explain to an intern that a buddy nicknamed one of my college professors “God’s Rolodex” because he seemingly knew everyone and was a massive name-dropper, and she looks at me like I have seven heads … because she has no idea what a Rolodex is.

Although I’m not one of those who thinks the last good music was made 40 years ago — I’m listening to Maren Morris’ album “Hero” as I write this post — most of today’s stuff is lost on me.

The college basketball players I watch have gone from being young enough to be my children if I was a young father, to all of them being that young, to all of them having been born since 2000.

I get it. I’m going to be 49 in a couple months. I’m not getting any younger (even if I am the youngest person in my pickleball group).

But all of that other stuff, I can deal with. Feeling like I’m falling apart, that the aches and pains I used to blow off can no longer be ignored, is another matter.

It’s not that my left shoulder stiffened up and made it hard to put my jacket on a few years ago, it’s that I actually went to the doctor’s office for it. (Dr. Google had me worried it was a torn rotator cuff, but the diagnosis was mild bicep tendinitis. The doctor recommended stretches, and it went away in a couple weeks.)

It’s not that I felt a “pop” on the inside of my leg while running after a ball, it’s that when it felt better a few days later, I was on the court again and woke up the next morning to the sight of the entire area being purple. Ice and rest sorted it out, eventually.

It’s not that my knees haven’t barked at least a little bit for a long time — I have always tended to throw myself about in whatever sport I’m playing, so it happens — it’s that I couldn’t walk up and down the stairs of my house without being afraid I had blown one out or just worn it down to nothing.

It’s not that my knee felt somewhat better that next morning — the stairs weren’t agonizing — it’s that even though I think I’m in decent shape and fairly athletic for my age, it feels like my body, piece by piece and little by little, is plotting to betray me.

And someday, it’s going to pull it off.

 

 

 

 

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