You Came Too Soon

It happened on Sunday. I was carrying a laundry basket down the basement stairs when my right knee gave out. Luckily I was able to regain control of it before falling down the stairs to my third Life Alert moment in the past six months. There was no reason for this to happen, at least none that makes sense to me. Later, I was walking around my backyard and it happened again.

I remember the first time I saw a basketball court. I was in elementary school. Late one afternoon of the neighborhood kids told me about this cool place behind the nearby high school where there was a basket way up high with a net hanging on it. I hopped on my bike and followed him to the spot. As I saw the basket from a distance, I noticed a surreal glow surrounding the court. I slowly got off my bike and walked onto the court. I stood in front of the basket in the center of a painted rectangle that had half a moon at the top. My friend had brought a basketball with him and tossed it to me. I bounced the ball several times and took a shot - I couldn't get the ball anywhere near the height of the basket. But that didn't matter. Next to playing my guitar and hunting morel mushrooms, this was the most magical moment of my young life. I should add here that it took me weeks of trying every day, but I finally got the ball as high as the rim!

When we moved to Michigan, I was lucky to have a backboard above the garage door and a floodlight to boot! I would play basketball by myself every night until Mom and Dad made me come in. I couldn't get enough. All I wanted to do was to play in the Olympics. Mind you, this was 1972. There was no women's basketball team until 1976. But I didn't know that, nor did I care.

I played varsity basketball starting in the 9th grade, but those knees that ached since I was knee high to a grasshopper kept giving me trouble. When I was sixteen I had knee surgery on my right knee. That was the end of my Olympic dreams. I once could jump to within an inch or two of the rim, after that I could barely hit the bottom of the net. I still received an athletic scholarship to college, but I was never going to play in the Olympics.

My knees still served me well. I backpacked all over Michigan, the Rockies and the Smokies. I hiked from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. I worked for years as a biologist, traipsing up talus slopes, wading in swamps, climbing mountains, scrambling in caves, chasing butterflies across a military base and a prairie fen. I don't blame them for saying enough is enough.

But it seems so fast, this advance of age. When I fell not once but twice in November (thank God I can still count without a calculator), I sustained injuries that just seem to take forever to heal. Pain is my constant companion, so much so that I am nearly debilitated most evenings. And it isn't uncommon for a passerby to hear me sniffling as the frustration mounts.

Living alone with chronic pain leaves me feeling vulnerable and helpless sometimes. I have wood to chop, sap to boil, a dog to play with, snow to shovel, a house to clean. And I pay dearly.

I am only fifty six years old (OK I turn fifty seven in May). I may be around another thirty years. I wonder what will become of me if this pain doesn't subside? My arthritis seems to find a new location every few months, so that the only thing that doesn't hurt is one foot, knock on wood. If I start replacing all the joints that need replacing, I'll be in recovery for the next two years.

It is a hard thing to not feel in control. I exercise at least every other day, I eat healthy, I have done many things to reduce my stress levels. But it isn't enough. I can't control what an Elderly friend of mine calls "the surly advance of decrepitude". It just happened so fast.

My shoulder doctor loves to remind me how old I am. "You know, I'll schedule an MRI for your shoulder but I can guarantee that anyone over 40 has some kind of rotator cuff tear." I want to sock him in the eye. My shoulder was fine before I fell. How dare he blame it on my age? I am not 80, or 70, or even 60!

I have lost my Jedi powers. I once used the Force to cope. I could will away the pain, ignore it, run right over it with life. Not anymore.

I am visiting my rheumatologist again in a few weeks, I haven't seen her in years. I am hoping she will have a magic cure to help my quality of life, but until then I will close my eyes and remember all the wonderful memories that were made possible by this beautiful body that has served me so well. I will be grateful for my strong legs that have carried to me to places few have seen, that have stomped a beat while on stage, that have danced in my basement where no one can see me. I will be grateful for strong hands that have played beautiful music, picked mushrooms, woven birch bark, and made delicious pies. I will love them and care for them and settle into what will be. And hope the warmth of spring will heal them.