I am currently dealing with a chronic back problem that is flaring up as a significant acute roadblock to mobility. Just trying to pick up a bag of groceries this morning has derailed my day and maybe my week.
I have friends who have lost limbs and others that are essentially having to learn to walk again after severe nerve and muscle damage. Those with traumatic head injuries and cancer and eye disease and autoimmune betrayal. I even have friends with more than one of those challenges at the same time. I fear that I would not be that brave or strong or kind.
I have hiked 400 miles this year so far, hell I even went on a short hike this morning. I have scaled over three times the height of Mt. Everest in 2024. The majority of all this hiking done after the onset of this significant spine flare-up this winter. All I can think about is what if? What if someday I can no longer hike or dare I say walk? What if that day is soon? What if the “what if” in the previous few sentences needs to be replaced with “when” as we are all just borrowing this time we so naively take for granted.
I do not know who I would be without the ability to move or speak or hear. I went to a concert just last week and I was planning on going to one tomorrow possibly. Music allows me to feel and live. I don’t thank my ear drums and all the other equipment in there nearly often enough. Thank you. Thank you nerves and immune system and salivary glands too. Thank you pre-frontal cortex and damaged-as-you-may-be L5-T1 facet joint. I do not know how I would ever cope with losing my sense of taste as food is sacred to me. Thank you memory systems and blood sugar regulation and smell. Smell! God, I almost forgot you smell!
Do I take everything for granted? Am I even present as I write out my four gratitudes each morning, okay, most mornings? Am I just doing all this out of some sort of superstitious belief that if I stop the problems will start snow-balling? Am I secretly trying to get on God’s good side?
And all the Loved ones. I have so many people who Love me. I Love so many people. I have people who respect me and admire me and are kind to me. I’m pretty sure I provide that function reasonably well to others. We have a roof and a fridge full of food and a couple cars in great shape and sun through the window. I will get to hug my wife in a matter of an hour or two after she returns home. Am I just a pinched nerve away from despair and existential dread?
I hear the garage door right now! She is home early. Tears welling-up…..
