Literally, as in the aging process, I'm becoming painfully aware that I'm not in Markyland anymore. Not that I was ever a studly muscle-man, but I pulled my own weight for most of my life. And that story is hard to get out of my head. It's unnatural to shadow yourself the way you attended to your elders, hard to “watch out” for yourself, that one guy you’ve gotten away with paying little attention to all your days unless it was a serious question of hurting yourself, and back then you had a good idea about what you could and couldn't do. Those times when you misjudged and hurt yourself, it wasn't long before you healed up and went back to doing it again.
I find myself on the verge of sixty-seven which looks a lot different to me than it did at twenty-seven. Back then when I saw an old dude my age, he seemed to have one foot in the grave. The problem with being sixty-seven is that twenty-seven year old is still making decisions inside your rundown apparatus. And I'm in decent shape for this age, I think, or at least my doctor tells me I am. Of course, I could be in a lot better shape, but it's not a huge priority for me, never was. I kept in decent shape because of work and entertainment, being on the go. Theses days I spend a lot of time in my head, and I dig the shit out of it. It looks pretty boring on the outside, but I'm enjoying the adventures I’ve logged along with the Walter Mitty treks I take.
What I don't enjoy, what none of us ever enjoy, is being in pain, less useful, or a burden on others (even if that's as innocuous as just harshing their buzz by not being able to join the fun and play along). Yes, I did something stupid, something I thought I could handle because I'm an old moving man who knows his limits and understands how to lift and carry. Right? Wrong. Oh, I did it correctly. I just shouldn't have done it. As my old moving buddy, Dublin, used to say: “They didn't say it couldn't be done, they said it shouldn't be done.”
Requiem for the Lumperati
*
The pain in my left shoulder
Radiates into my arm,
Emanates from under the scapula
Close to the spine
Where it travels into my neck, cuts
Across below the right shoulder blade,
Shoots down, settles in the small
Of my back & left hip. There’s a burn
In my clicking right knee—a noticeable limp
By afternoon. The right hip is tight and sore.
I can’t do this work anymore: too many
Washers & dryers, dressers & tables,
Sofa sleepers & Trinitron TVs,
Boxes of rocks & books & tools,
Refrigerator/freezers & king size beds.
The pain in my head is real
Whether or not I believe what I see
In the mirror. This body is worn
Out, can’t lift & go the day after
Lifting and going all day.
Time to hang up the hump strap
Before I wind up like Elvis or the Old Hound Dog;
Turn in those blue, frayed rock & roll shoes
Lumpin’ Leo took off years ago;
Give this gray-hair’s skeleton a rest;
Let his damaged soft tissues soften.
Step aside, Old Man, so the young bucks
Can do what they need to do: serve,
Solve & sweat. Let them have their day,
Don Quixote. It is time for you
To teach me how to ride (how to write) it down:
The joys we found tilting gun safes & grand pianos,
Gutting it out on the stairs
Or pulling the “plywood shuffle”
Upslope & side hill through mud . . .
Doing whatever it took, no matter what
That was or how hard it looked,
To insure the shipper’s
Impossible dream came true.
There you go. From twenty-five to fifty-seven I did stupid shit with my body in the name of professionalism, thinking I was getting smarter about it all the time. It all ended when I tore up my left shoulder. That was a decade ago. How soon they forget.
Pam was gifted an “older air conditioner” if we wanted to pick it up at an apartment house. They had a hand truck available which I was happy about since this was an “older” Kenmore, bulkier than most newer window air conditioners. I wheeled it to the car, but I was alone. It had to be lifted from the ground. Conscious of my back, I got into the right squat, tipped it to get a good grip, my right arm extended to hold the top weight of it, gave it a short lift, didn't think it felt too bad. Besides, the twenty-seven year old in my head said: “What else are you going to do, leave it sitting here on the street?” I agreed with him and hoisted it up, but the bottom wasn't quite clearing the bumper, so I had to sort of heave-lift it more to get it into the back of the car. That may have done it, that and the fact that the twenty-seven year old insisted once more after I'd gotten it home that I might as well put it in the window. And though I was feeling a testy issue in that right shoulder, I was determined to finish the job (and make my younger self proud). That is the fucking problem in my head!
I scoped out my approach, removed the storm window, cleared a pathway to the dining room, and made a spot on the table to set it. I had Pam open the doors for me (it was ninety-six degrees and had been hot all June—why we opted for this old cooler in the first place) and I opened the gate to the backyard and headed for the car. This long carry from the car parked in the garage then forty feet down the alley and through the gate, then down the sidewalk almost the length of the house, and then maneuvering in through the back doors, doing the tight-squeeze and step-up into and through the kitchen to arrive at my resting spot on the dining room table, probably secured the (semi-quiet at that point) damage to my shoulder I think, but I had other “more important” things to think about: getting it installed in the window. So I opened the window and got a new right-arm-extended grip across the top middle of it because the old beast was too big to fit it in with my hands on the outside edges of it. It literally filled the width of the window casing. I went outside and propped it up to see how much bracing I'd need on the window sill to make it sit level. Then I went back in and pulled the monster out of the window, put it back on the table, closed the window, and found some one-by particle board slabs in the garage that I hand sawed and hammered into place to level the air conditioner. Then I went back inside and wrestled it once again into position, closed the window, and turned it on. Success! The coolness was a godsend! In hindsight I can only shake my head at the twenty-seven year old's feeling of accomplishment, not to mention the little smile (smirk?) on his “job well done for free” face of satisfaction.
That was seven weeks ago. The seven weeks I've spent sleeping in the recliner. The seven weeks of pain and of kicking myself again and again for living in Denial. How many times do I have to do this shit? Snap out of it! And get a fucking clue! The MRI says I tore it up, and because of the pandemic backup, I will finally see an orthopedic surgeon next week. I'm fairly certain he will schedule a surgery (the third on these old dog shoulders). Then there will be the recovery. I need to send a message to the twenty-seven year old: “Dude, your day is done. Shut the fuck up!” and another one to the current inhabitant of this soon-to-be corpse: “Wake up, tough guy, you are a goddamn has-been! Look in the mirror. Use what’s left of your old head! Think before you proceed!”
The only benefit of this situation I'm in (and have been in too many times before) is that it does remind me of how lucky I am. It makes me think of all those people who live with constant daily-lifelong physical and mental struggles, and that I should never take for granted the freedom I have and have had moving through this life. Appreciate what you’ve got, today, folks. I truly do and usually do, or at least I try (especially when I’m in this predicament) . . . I also like to whine a lot.
Dear lumperati, Brain brawn is a learned trait. Research has shown that the modern human is difficult, if not impossible, to learn how to make intelligent decisions. That is why the cell phone and the internet has replaced this futile effort of said modern human. Thusly, further research has suggested that the modern human brain, in conjunction with his or her muscles are diminishing, with the exception of thumbs which are growing
It's a strange reckoning, this admitting one's older body is not as strong and resilient as one's younger body. Sorry your foray turned so painful. If I were you, I'd blame global warming. You wouldn't have needed that damned air conditioner when you were a strappin' 20-something year old. Or even at 57. Good luck with the healing!