Dead Zone
Today I feel like the psycho-physiological version of one of those zones in the ocean where there's not enough oxygen to support life. Since I awoke my right shoulder has felt like someone spent the night grinding it under the heel of their boot. I injured it playing Wii Boxing with my 5 year old daughter, and it's been uncomfortable for nearly a month. So, that's not calculated to give one a feeling of joie de vivre, nor does it fill me with anticipation of the grand possibilities of life.
Sometimes on a cold and foggy morning like this morning, even though I'm tired and having trouble finding my rhythm on a Monday morning, there's a weird spark in there somewhere that gets me started and has me looking forward to the day.
Not today. All I want is to have about an hour of massage on my shoulder and a morning of reading and sipping coffee. I want to walk about four miles around 11AM, then repair somewhere for lunch and, and, uh . . . I don't know. Read some more, I guess. I'm not really feeling tired in the conventional sense of not enough sleep. It's more emotional than that. I am tired on a different level. Or I'm frustrated. Or both.
Being quite aware of my body and what it can do, I also am very aware of what it can't do. I've had various injuries over the years that have nagged, and I suppose that as I get older and the list of those things grows a little longer, I mostly grown more phlegmatic about each one, but I'm not reacting that way with this shoulder problem. It's deeply frustrating. I have a knee that has no ACL remaining, and less than half the cartiledge, but that's not a problem day to day. I've lived with that for 35 years. This is different. This seems more debilitating and comes at a time when I am trying to keep my strength up as Father Time tries to tear it down. It's only been going on for a month, but it feels intractable and eternal, even though I know it isn't either one.
I guess I just have to go through it for a while. Aging sucks sometimes, but I guess the alternative is worse. Perhaps in a few days a more upbeat post will appear in this space. Perhaps it doesn't freakin' matter anyway, because I'm tired and I don't care. Quee sarah sarah.
"Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', and it's there that I would be—
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea."
-Kipling-
Sometimes on a cold and foggy morning like this morning, even though I'm tired and having trouble finding my rhythm on a Monday morning, there's a weird spark in there somewhere that gets me started and has me looking forward to the day.
Not today. All I want is to have about an hour of massage on my shoulder and a morning of reading and sipping coffee. I want to walk about four miles around 11AM, then repair somewhere for lunch and, and, uh . . . I don't know. Read some more, I guess. I'm not really feeling tired in the conventional sense of not enough sleep. It's more emotional than that. I am tired on a different level. Or I'm frustrated. Or both.
Being quite aware of my body and what it can do, I also am very aware of what it can't do. I've had various injuries over the years that have nagged, and I suppose that as I get older and the list of those things grows a little longer, I mostly grown more phlegmatic about each one, but I'm not reacting that way with this shoulder problem. It's deeply frustrating. I have a knee that has no ACL remaining, and less than half the cartiledge, but that's not a problem day to day. I've lived with that for 35 years. This is different. This seems more debilitating and comes at a time when I am trying to keep my strength up as Father Time tries to tear it down. It's only been going on for a month, but it feels intractable and eternal, even though I know it isn't either one.
I guess I just have to go through it for a while. Aging sucks sometimes, but I guess the alternative is worse. Perhaps in a few days a more upbeat post will appear in this space. Perhaps it doesn't freakin' matter anyway, because I'm tired and I don't care. Quee sarah sarah.
"Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', and it's there that I would be—
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea."
-Kipling-
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