Give me back my possibilities you son-of-a-bitch
A life without health is a life without possibility. The fullest expression of health is the opposite.
Bear with me for a moment. This won’t take long. Over the past six years or so I’ve been in pain, deep soul-sucking pain originating first in my pelvis and then later in my hip bones. As a mover, this was the worst possible thing that could have happened to me. See movement, exercise and the joys of the boy were the absolute foundation fo everything that I ever loved: Crossfit, hockey, skateboarding, hiking, sex, hiking sex, everything.
For most of my life I took it for granted, as something that just was and always will be - until it wasn’t. In my early 20s, I tore my rectus abdominus at the origin of the pubic symphysis. That’s fancy for I pulled my six-pack muscles away from the insertion point right above my gentiles. See, this is a tricky injury to diagnose because it is poorly understood (read why). Being tricky to diagnose …. I was gifted with three years of unexplained pelvic, thoracic, and lower-back pain right in the middle of my athletic prime.
I was still functional. I could walk. Work (not well). Have sex. But the majority of my existence was a miserable experience. Thinking back to it, the experience was a little bit like having someone wrap a bike tire around your tummy, tying it off, and then leaving it there forever.
It didn’t double you over but your life was pretty miserable. And this went on and on until it wore me down. And that weardown is the subject of this essay’s argument.
Chronic pain changes your relationship with everything. Your happy-go-lucky drinking friend is suddenly wasting his life because he’s having fun without getting 8 hours of sleep. Your greatest sources of pleasure become sources of limitation and of ‘I used to be able to do that’ experiences.’
The argument is basically a pyramid of possibility.
It’s straightforward, the less health you have, the fewer possibilities of expressing your life choices through your body. The more health you have the more possibilities you have available to you.
You see this in stroke patients who have a significant portion of their previously available capabilities away from them. Rightful frustration ensues as they suddenly have to realign the possibilities and capabilities of their bodies. Movement is decreased. Muscular control is more difficult. Maybe speech is impaired. The list goes on but the pattern is universal.
You take away my functional capabilities and experience of life and I do less. This is also what the medical profession gives back to people (and one of the main reasons I’m becoming a physical therapist. Make them feel better and measurably improve their capabilities and you have an increase in possibility.
And that possibility is fucking magical. You can do anything, anywhere, anytime. The best part is that your possibility looks different from mine, which looks different from theirs.
What could be more important than protecting that in each other?
