Bussin’

Now I have two.

Bussin’

I waved as it pulled away. I wasn't sick of fitness or sick of it being fucked, just tired, and hurt, run down by the miles catching up.

The bus pulls away faster after a certain age, without even chirping the tires. I stepped off and it coasted down a slight grade, eventually gathered speed, and one day it was too far away to see. The fitness bus. The health and still-hungry bus. Yep, disappeared down the ever-roughening road.

I remained rabid for it at 55 and 56 but the following year things began to change and my hunger faded. I understand that some fires are sustainable for some individuals and burn brightly despite the possibility of age-related limitation but it’s not the norm, and not even ten percent of the whole. If your fire is still hotly burning you are rare indeed.

I last moved without pain about ten years ago, or maybe it was only seven. The pain makes time into something more than a means of measurement. The last two years have been real bad. My ankle has been bone-on-bone since 2018 or so but I got by with drugs and a series of good braces. I could hike and ride and that was enough even when each outing cost a little more and recovery took a little longer. Pain became associated activity, any activity, any movement, even those that didn’t hurt. Sure, I could have kept doing pull-ups and presses but I didn’t see the point.

Then one day I went too hard and too far. I did it for love. I had made a commitment. And that effort scoured away the last cartilage keeping my left hip intact and pain-free. I went from walking to not walking, from sleeping to not sleeping, from a relatively relaxed jaw to gritting my teeth every waking minute. The hip hurt badly enough that it overwrote the pain in my ankle. I began to worry about my kidneys as the NSAID intake increased and my use of alcohol and other pain meds to sleep cut through the discipline that kept me alive and viable for so many years. I would have joined the opioid crisis but none of the right pushers would invite me. I was OTC all the way … and no different than any other addict whose only daily mission was to reduce his or her pain.

I finally had the bad hip replaced and relief was near-immediate. Mobility and sleep — after so long without — was glorious. I could move and breathe. They cut out what hurt and replaced it with parts that didn't and within two weeks I was walking without a limp and sleeping through the night. But the more I moved the more I stressed my ankle, which had suffered little pressure while my hip was limiting movement. Today, in the relatively quiet rock gym Blair could hear my ankle grinding as she belayed me from the mats 15 feet below. I love the feeling of moving across steep inclines like I used to but hate the limitations I now own precisely because I moved over so much mountain terrain when I was younger.

And fitness is nowhere in sight. I tire quickly on the bike. I get pumped on easy routes in the rock gym. I’m sore for days after every gym session. “Why bother?” was OK for a couple of years but it’s not any longer. And even though movement may be medicine, it sure is tough to wade through the negative feedback and to move consistently, if gently, a little more each day. In the words of an old friend, "It's got to be done," so I'll chase the bus, recover enough fitness to make facing the next orthopedic insult a little easier, and hopefully steer the outcome toward the positive. A few rides on the bike each week, a day or two in the rock gym, little steps now to avoid a bigger one in the wrong direction later. It’s not easy — what demoralizes us never is.

Rather suddenly, I understand how people fall off of the bus and then don't bother chasing it — sometimes, for some people, it is simply too hard. And the call to remain seated on the sofa is louder than the honking horn of the bus that is always willing to accept old passengers, former passengers, future passengers.