You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Getting old.
I am getting old. You are getting old.
It’s the one thing every single one of us reading this right now is doing.
In fact, you are older now, than you were just one sentence earlier.
Sorry, my bad.
So, we are all getting old.
Some of us are aging faster than others. Some of us are looking better than others.
But we are all aging.
Tick Tock.
I am reminded of this as I sit here typing.
My shoulder is aching. It’s throbbing slowly, like a slow roast ham inside my skin.
I am barely moving. I am barely twitching, flinching or exerting pressure, but I feel it throbbing.
In 2008 I fell off a ladder.
I was ten feet in the air. I was painting.
I could see the warning that said: THIS IS NOT A STEP.
That caution is for others, I thought.
I was on my tip toes pushing the roller higher and higher.
Look at the way that paint covers that old section of wall, I am thinking to myself.
All my attention was focused above me, a foot from my face.
Suddenly the traction on my shoes was gone.
Suddenly I am tumbling backward.
I hit the wood floor, head first.
I remember a flash of blue and then black and then the pain.
I remember laying on my back. I remember feeling numb. I remember wondering what happened.
I am confused, I’m in pain. My upper back is tingling. My neck feels tight. My head hurts.
The paramedics come, they ask my birthdate.
Funny. I can’t remember my birthday.
Why can’t I remember my birthday?
“You have signs of a concussion,” the paramedic says as he secures my head to the back board.
Long story short. I am not paralyzed and I am treated and released from the hospital.
But the long-term effects of that fall are now forever.
My shoulder moved and can never be fixed.
In that micron of a second, my body decompressed, my skeletal system shifted, for a moment.
But in that moment, the damage was done. Nothing broke, it just moved, slightly.
Your stuff is inside of you where it is supposed to be.
Just so. Just right.
A millimeter to the right?
That’s bad.
So I now live with bad.
The only way to reduce the ache is to go to the chiropractor.
For some that is a frightening experience.
It was once for me too.
He lays me on the table. He lowers the head rest so my neck is now bent and my head is drooping toward the floor.
I feel the blood roll into my ears as I stare at the brown carpet below me.
His fingers touch my spine and pelvis and push on my sides.
His fingers are skilled and he has a reassuring way.
But I know that moment is coming.
“OK. Take a deep breath.”
I inhale. I wait.
I think about the fall from 7 years ago. I think about the pain in my shoulder that has taken me to this place in time.
I feel his fingers dig into my skin, preparing for the next moment.
“OK. Now blow it out.”
I exhale.
As I do, he quickly twists my neck in a short burst of concentrated force.
I feel my head whip to the side.
I hear bones crunch in my ear.
It is frightening.
Getting adjusted is like being in a car wreck that you know is coming and somehow you believe will benefit you after you crash.
“Oh yeah,” he says. “Did you feel that? You were out of alignment.”
Did I feel that?
You mean the car wreck in my spine? The building collapse in my skeletal system? The space shuttle implosion in my mind?
Did I feel that?
“Yeah. I felt that.”
“Roll over,” he says.
“We’re not done?,” I moan.
“No. One more adjustment.”
I roll over. I stare at the ceiling. He places both hands under my neck and head and moves me back and forth.
“OK, inhale.”
Here we go.
I inhale.
It’s like standing before a firing squad and listening to the man say “ANY LAST WORDS?”
“Exhale.”
It’s like an alarm bell in my brain, as I blow out the oxygen.
As I deflate like a skin balloon, the doctor pushes on my shoulder and pulls on my shoulder.
CRACK. SNAP.
It sounds like a tree falling inside my ears.
I see a burst of color in my brain.
I see the doctor’s face. He seems pleased as if he has solved the riddle of the skeletal Sphynx.
“OK. You’re good for a while,” he says.
Good for a while.
He’s right. Good for a while. We both know I will be back.
And that’s old age.
I went through 40 plus years of life. I never once went to a chiropractor.
One slip, one rapid decompression, one near death experience, and now I’m a chronic pain sufferer who has little to look forward to shoulder wise.
I will never get better. It’s just preventative. And as I ride planet Earth around the sun a few more times, my body will calcify and stiffen and soon the adjustments will become more plentiful and necessary.
You are at least 5 minutes older having read this story. My right shoulder is a year older having moved the muscles in my fingers to type these 900 or so words.
I’m sorry you just got older. I’m sorry I just got older.
Life’s Crazy™