This is a true confession. Last week I was walking towards the squash court for the fourth day in a row—two of them after 2+ hours of tennis—and my left knee started clicking or popping. No pain, just sounds. I hit squash balls that day and the next, but still just tightness. I have no recollection of any twisting or sudden jarring that would have done ANYTHING.
I spoke to a doctor who said I was describing bone to bone rubbing, a lack of fluid, and advised me to take glucosamine, which is over the counter. He said it could be the onset of arthritis, didn’t sound like a tear. I looked up some quad exercises that might help.
The clicking was intermittent, and over the next few days there was some serious soreness.
So I started worrying A LOT that maybe my super workout, 2-4 hour sports days might end. Maybe I had Lyme disease. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to play tennis into my nineties, or even my eighties. Damn! Just when I was improving. Could I have arthritis, a torn knee?
I’ve spoken to friends going crazy about not being able to exercise for weeks after leg breaks from skiing. I’ve talked to people who have had clicking joints for years and just took it and the pain in stride (“I don’t even feel it any more. I could never be a ninja and sneak up silently on anyone.”) Others tell me that they are always in pain from sports exertions and injuries. And I hear countless stories at the tennis club about players of all ages who have given up the game, because the risk of serious disability is too great for their hurting knees and shoulders.
Then I spoke to friends who have—or told me—about illnesses that are so serious that they might die. The fear and reality these people live with each day sounds terrible. They go to hospitals and see doctors weekly or monthly. I can’t imagine what that is like, even though I have spent months in a hospital recovering from hepatitis and jaundice in Korea, was flown back to the States on a stretcher, and took weeks of recuperation, before I could walk one block.
So now I feel great shame that I am upset over not playing tennis another 5-15 years. Of course Life is NOT fair. And we have to play with the cards that it dealt us. Some are poor, like bad genes. Others are crappy, like accidents that no one ever thought about or were one in a thousand or one in a million chances we would be hurt. Wrong place wrong time. Or OK place, but still wrong time.
How can I moan about it? But everything is relative.
I knew someone who was making over a million dollars a year many decades ago. I was making less than $35,000 then. Yet he was hanging around with tycoons acquiring over $50 million a year. He felt poor. He was frustrated. He felt inadequate.
A friend told me about an acquaintance who had inherited $600 million, but was depressed in 2009, when his fortune declined by a third. So he only had $400 million to his name. Laughable to me. Misery to the rich guy.
How do we resolve these attitudes? It’s like being caught in two or more worlds. Glad that I can play at all…have the time, don’t have to work every minute, have the health, live near a court. Others are sick, working like animals at my age, or are dead. I should be grateful for any level of play and decent life. Even if I can no longer run safely around the court.
But then there is the other world, where I want to keep going, improve, have the greater satisfaction that comes with prowess, cardio, health, more skill. It’s not enough just to be alive and healthy. I want to push and grow and accomplish. Greedy for more, lusting for continued success.
Maybe it is just built into our DNA. A human survival instinct. As long as we’re alive, it’s not enough to just watch TV on a couch or the ocean from the beach. We need the challenges and reaches, the competition and grasping for achievement. What do you think?
Pingback: TJ Faces Two Big Challenges « ira's abs
#1 by T.J. on April 1, 2012 - 8:50 PM
Quote
This post resonated with me, so I felt the need to comment. These are just some thoughts, so forgive me if the sentiment’s a little scattered.
This past December I entered the lottery for the New York City marathon for the fourth time in my life, and was admitted. FINALLY I’m getting the chance to live out one of my lifelong dreams of running 26.2 miles in the city in which I’ve learned some of my most important life lessons. To have the opportunity to meet this challenge head on, means the whole world to me, and every day that I go running, I just picture all of my Rocky Balboa-esque workouts culminating in that final moment when my mind has conquered matter, and I’m dashing across the finish line.
Another challenge presented itself this past December too – I discovered I have an auto-immune disorder called alopecia areta that causes my hair to fall out in patches sporadically. While otherwise perfectly healthy, I have absolutely no control over what my hair will look like the next day, and eventually, if my body doesn’t respond to treatment (cortisone injections in my scalp once a month), I could end up totally bald.
You can imagine that for a woman, not having any control over how I’m going to look is incredibly frustrating, and it’s made me consider how drastically others’ perceptions of me could shift in the next year or so, but surprisingly (even to me), I’m not that upset. I’ve had a lot of time since December to reflect on what my condition really is in the grand scheme of things. I’m not dying. Being bald wouldn’t change who I am fundamentally. There are so many worse things that can happen to a person. I have friends who are battling cancer, mourning the losses of their parents, and learning how to live their life again with only one leg. So whenever I start to feel sorry for myself for a little hair falling out, I remember that for now, I can still go for a run. Who knows? Maybe if I end up totally bald, the lack of extra wind resistance will shave a couple minutes off my marathon time? : )
It’s tough not being able to do something you’ve been able to your whole life. It’s tough not having control while your body changes. I know playing tennis and putting your hair up are in two totally different ballparks, but I think I can empathize with the sentiment. We’re all constantly on a journey to achieve and to perfect ourselves despite the wear and tear that comes with living. But maybe if you stay off of your knee for a while, you’ll have the opportunity to pull something else out of yourself you didn’t know was there. Maybe you’re a world class chess player? Maybe you’ll spend more time rowing and find that it’s something you love?
We are each a project that’s always evolving and re-growing. I could lose all of my hair. I could sprain my ankle and not even make it to the marathon (knock on wood). But until that happens, I’m relishing in shampooing my hair every morning and beaming with every step I take in the evening because you’re right – as long as we’re alive, it’s not enough to just watch the ocean from the beach. You don’t get a dress rehearsal, so you have to enjoy what you’ve got while you’ve got it and push for everything you want in this life. If you love tennis, play tennis until you can’t play tennis anymore, and then when you can’t, you’ll find a new passion within yourself and be a stronger person for it.
When I’m running, I spend a lot of time thinking about the people and ideas that have made me strong enough to conquer a marathon, and I want to put them all on the t-shirt I wear that day in some way to remind myself of who I really am. You can be sure that I’ll have a shout out to irasabs.com somewhere on that shirt. Thank you for always being an inspiration.