Wednesday, August 08, 2007

This Getting Older Stuff, Sucks

I've never been the most graceful, just ask my mom. I think I may have gotten my first bump or bruise in the crib at the hospital. I know I got my first scar-maker at 3 months.

It never phased me, really. You live, you live with the bumps, right?

I know many of you are shaking your heads wondering how I've survived this long without accidentally beheading myself or something. Shear luck, I guess. Speed in healing as well. In these, um, middle years (or if it were cave-man times we could say "gramma years" people only lived until like 35 right?), I am losing both the luck and the speed...and that is just sucking so very hard.

When push comes to shove, I fall down, hard. I tripped over my own two feet, and maybe one of those concrete parking space dividers, just the other day. I guess the throbbing in my legs and hand were to distract me from my silly backache, or something. (Something like, say, my body trying to kill itself and missed, again, or something.)

And that backache! Hello! I am 33 years old. Why is my back spasming out? I think it's all connected to my hip. Thanks, Andy, for putting the silly Them Bones song in my head after I mentioned it to you...grrr. Seriously though, I feel like my luck ran out hard when I was run off the road that day so long ago when I was on my bicycle heading to my lawyer's office to sign some silly papers. I fell HARD and damaged my hip and wrist. It's been two and a half years. The wrist is weak but doing fine, the hip? She doesn't work all that great, especially lately.

Lately the Hip has made herself known. I am not the most svelte of heavenly creatures, but the um "junk" in my "trunk" never really bothered me. Thanks to my lack of mobility immediately after the accident, I quickly gained too much weight...at least 20 lbs.--scary thought/post for another day. Along with the weight, I have gained an extra "hand-hold" around that damaged hip area. It looks and feels just wrong. It always has. Lately, my theory at any rate, is that it's messing with my muscles in every which way possible. It affects the way I walk, climb stairs, sleep...what a bitch. I want to believe it's still healing, but at a geriatric snail's pace.

I can't but think of how it would have been different if I were in my early 20s and such a thing had ALMOST happened--that luck thing. See, I rode my bike all over Santa Cruz and left many dents in car doors with my Dock Martins when they tried to force me off the road. It was, as scary as it seems now, second nature to jump onto and off of sidewalks and bounce off cars as I made my way to Capitola, CA to get home from UCSC or home from the bookstore in years following. There were a couple of tumbles, but I was invincible! Clumsy, yes, always, but invincible!

I really miss those days. Especially when I'm sitting here on what seems like the "Group W" bench wondering how many Advil I can take and not kill my liver so I can still function at work today...urgh.

3 comments:

Bezzie said...

Yes, as forward as I am looking to wrinkles and gray hair, the rest of me falling apart doesn't excite me.

Maybe you need to see if you can't fall off a bike again maybe to whack everything back in place?

Hm, yes, that comment is why I'll never be a chiropractor.

Anonymous said...

I'm having lab work done to see if I'm pre-menopausal. Isn't every woman pre-menopausal before menopause? Just curious. I'm 31 btw. So I can totally relate.

bezzie's funny.

Anonymous said...

When my husband seriously broke his leg a while back, it took a long time for him to heal completely. He'd be walking along and all of the sudden his leg would just give out. So maybe it just hasn't quite been long enough for the healing process with your hip.