I feel so old. I threw out my back last weekend and I’ve been gimping around ever since. Luckily it was a long weekend, because on Monday I couldn’t even get out of bed. I just lay on my back feeling terrible and watching documentaries about home-grown terrorist groups in America. It’s a weird thing to binge watch – I know – but I had a lot of time on my hands.
The worst part of being incapacitated with an injury is that I instantly trick myself into thinking that not only is this my normal state of being, but it’s also a condition I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.
Any memories of being healthy and agile start to feel like a fantasy that never really existed – like that dream I could fly in. Sure I remember it, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t actually happen.
In the same way, the thought of once being able to stand upright – and walk more than a block without having to stop, sit down and hate myself – seems like an illusion from an event that never really took place and certainly won’t ever happen again.
I realize how hyperbolic this is. It’s not like I had to go to the hospital or anything, and in a few days I’ll probably be right back to taking my healthy body for granted. But after lying in bed debilitated – and watching stock footage of Craig Cobb try for a political coup of Leith, N.D. – I was filled with a sense of dread that this would never get better.
And even if it does get better, how long until the next time I hurt myself?
How long until I’m too old to even get better?
How do people with real disabilities wake up every morning and do things? How do they keep living and being productive members of society day after day? I’m so impressed that they can do that.
A friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer not that long ago and through her treatment she lost her hair and her ability to walk. She’s doing physiotherapy and slowly recovering – she can stand for a short time now – but she’s so positive.
“What a great attitude,” I used to think passively when I saw her. Now I wonder how I could even fake positivity if I was in her situation.
Of course I was hanging out with her and her boyfriend when I threw my back out. I felt like such a fraud complaining about how I couldn’t stand up straight while she offered condolences from her wheelchair.
Maybe there’s something that happens when you survive dying but end up left with a disability. If you measure the price of losing your legs next to the price of still being able to breathe, maybe getting through each day seems like a challenge with rewards instead of an unending struggle through pain and misery.
I don’t know. As soon as the day is over I’m going back to the couch and marathoning all of Ken Burns’ war documentaries.
