Old man gets hurt, refuses to admit it, suffers further
The pain is intense, but what really hurts is how much my sense of self has been diminished
So, I’ve got an injury.
I’ll spare you the details, except to say it’s a common one that happens to people who try to mind-over-matter their body’s age with exercise.
I’ve mostly been quiet about this because so many people are experiencing the exact opposite, but I’ve thrived throughout the pandemic. I’ve spent less time working on things that ultimately don’t matter and more time on things I enjoy and care about. While, yes, my social life is in complete tatters, this past year has represented a lot of personal development.
Being single in isolation, with all the limitations on social interactions, turning inward has been less of a choice and more of a necessity. Again, it’s not something I’ve been very forthcoming about — as others deal with serious family health issues, financial struggles, worries over their children’s educational and social development and generally living on the brink of mental collapse (or at least feeling that way) — but I’ve been doing really well throughout all this.
I’m running and cycling and lifting weights and focusing on my nutrition. While the physical benefits have been amazing — best shape of my life and all that — I didn’t necessarily appreciate how much of my identity I had tied up in my level of exercise until this injury.
Yesterday, I went on a walk — one of the few activities in which I’m allowed to participate — and I cannot properly express the seething jealousy that washed over me as runners passed me except to say that it literally made me warmer. Envy increased my body temperature. I was a blip on these people’s gentle jog, a obstacle to be avoided without really thinking. And yet, they were everything to me in that moment. A painful reinforcement of my own limitations; physically, yes, but also as an individual who wants to be self-determining.
The pain I’m experiencing is intense, but what really hurts is that — for the time being — I’m not the person who can run for 10 kilometres per day or do a 45 minute spin class or work on my bench press or even pick up a kettlebell. In fact, I’ve made my injury worse by not immediately acknowledging that I couldn’t be that person, and trying, ridiculously stupidly, to overcome it through sheer will. Stopping might have brought physical relief, but it wasn’t worth the mental anguish of no longer being the person I had made myself.
If you like sports, you’ve no doubt read about the mental toughness of athletes. Until this point, I always assumed that was a part of sports journalists godding up their subject matter to justify their own professional jock sniffing. While certainly, the athlete who comes back from a catastrophic injury to compete again always represents a wonderful overcoming-great-obstacles narrative, I never really felt a connection or much in the way of empathy for that competitor.
My own comparatively minor setback, though, has granted me a new appreciation for the fortitude necessary for a high-level athlete to spend time recuperating. It’s also rendered the gross fan’s assumption that some players are soft even more ridiculous.
No one wants to be on the shelf, removed from what they’ve come to identify themselves as. If I’m feeling that as a recreational fitness devotee, I can’t even imagine the torture experienced by someone who has publicly pinned their livelihood, their focus to athletic endeavour being told to put that on pause.
I can’t imagine it for anyone who has been more harshly restricted from being who they are, who they believe themselves to be.
I know it’s probably a bit cloying to turn this experience into a THE MORE YOU KNOW moment, but if you feel like your identity is somewhat shaken right now, I can’t encourage you enough to embrace that it’s only temporary, that recovery is in the future. Things are fucked up for so many people, but our identities will get over it and evolve into something new and hopefully stronger that we’ll establish as ourselves.
New and improved. Forged by fire. Progress isn’t as linear as we want. It turns out that all those seemingly dumbass clichés have a newfound relevance when you’re simply not yourself.
Photo by Owen Beard on Unsplash