Damn you, Jim Morrison.
At the moment, all I can hear is your velvet lounge lizard voice emerging through the polyphonic haze, warning me as a friend that “this is the end….”
I used that track on a charity fundraising video when I was approaching my 50th state way back in 2012… but this is a different kind of end. Whereas that was a celebratory end of an amazing journey, this is a warning shot of an ignominious end, my beautiful friend.
My leg still hurts. My hip is out of alignment. I hobble about. I am hobbled.
I skipped the Rock N Roll DC Marathon. I haven’t gone for a run of any distance in just under a week. As I only half-jokingly told my friends I was visiting here in the nation’s capital, I did all I can do – that should’ve been plenty of rest and recovery. Why am I still hurting? C’mon, body – we skipped the marathon. That’s it – you should be 100% healed. I’ve given you all I can. Now it’s your turn to do the right thing.
But it just doesn’t seem to be improving. And that is… troubling… worrying… devastating?
I’m feeling the effects of age and while this is a weirdly selfish take on current events, the death of Luke Perry struck a nerve. He is the first of my contemporary generation celebrities who died. Sure, sure. Others of my age have died stupidly or tragically – drugs, crashes, accidents, the cruel dealings at fate’s casino. But Luke Perry died because time and age caught up to him – his body just said, “nope, time has taken its toll.” He won’t be the last, obviously, but as the first it’s like the tiniest leak in the dam. The flood waters of time are pushing through and there is no way to hold them back.
I’ve certainly been cognizant of how I do not bounce back from a marathon as quickly or as easily as when I was younger. And I’ve noticed far too frequently how soft in the middle I’ve gotten, Paul Simon’s dulcet tones reverberating from Graceland. But this injury feels more like a Luke Perry moment – this inexplicable pain which I’ve ascribed to picking up an errant sock whilst laundering – it just happened because the body doesn’t move the way it used to.
And that’s a pretty big deal when I run. The body is one giant interconnected machine. My checkbook knows better than my head that once the warranty is up, and once one thing breaks on something, there’s more mechanical failures on the horizon that need repair… or need to be replaced en masse with a newer model. We live in a disposable world and these days it’s usually far cheaper financially to just swap out the malfunctioning piece with a brand new one, to buy new as opposed to fixing the old. And while that may work ok for a refrigerator, cell phone, washer or dryer, car, what have you (discounting of course the environmental cost implications of a disposable economy), that same mindset does not really apply to oneself.
Yes, yes – there are sci-fi novels postulating that we may download our consciousness into new carbon or cyborg shells. Yet given that some of those same novels try and address the line between humanity and machine, I am stuck with what I’ve got. And what I’ve got is a hip out of alignment, a painful stride even in walking, and a terrifying worry that this could be the end of health and the beginning of not-running.
I used to think I’m just a guy who runs a lot. But now I’m a runner who occasionally guys a bit. It’s a distinction that means if I can’t run, I’m not sure who I am.
I skipped a marathon. And while as I’ve said repeatedly I was thrilled to cheer on my friends as they ran their races, it all felt so very off. I’m not usually on the sidelines, on the outside looking in. And yet, there I was, on the literal outside of the fence, looking into the finishing chute. At dinner that night, as my friends reminisced/griped about the hills on the course, a favorite past-time of finishers everywhere, I could only nod knowingly. I wonder if this is how it felt for my friends when they came with me to races to cheer me on. I should thank them s lot more for indulging/tolerating me.
It is my great fear that with each passing day, with each passing moment that my leg and hip remain teeth-chatteringly tender and painfully “Stabby McStabberson,” that I’m destined to be on the outside looking in.
I’m feeling old. And not in the usual ways. I’m hearing the footsteps behind me… and not of fellow runners, but of time’s march. And I feel it passing me by while I struggle to keep pace.
There is a feeling of desperation creeping into the healing process… which assuming attitude impacts outcome makes for a tougher road ahead.
I suppose it wouldn’t hurt (whatever happens next) to be on the lookout for some other exercise/stress relief/past time.
Because some day I won’t be able to run again.
And I worry that day is much closer than I can even imagine.
Tough days. Tough days.