Laid Up Again
No less than my fourth major surgery in fifteen years, and I’m not sure I feel any better for it, but on the other hand one would have to wonder how messed up I’d be without them. There could have been a fifth, but the doctor said it wasn’t worth the trouble and instead I needed to change my lifestyle and stop putting the stress on my shoulder, The latest one is on my foot, the subtalar joint to be exact. They fused it and then lengthened my Achilles tendon. The next six weeks are non-weight bearing and even worse, the first two weeks are in bed with my foot elevated at all times except bodily functions. Eat, sleep, write, read, watch tv, watch the world out the window all from the comforts of my bed. After two days, I’m already stir crazy and anxious to move. Moving anything would be great and I’m staring at that the scooter thinking it would be great to bust out of my confinement and wheel around the house yelling “I’m free!”. Complaining doesn’t seem to do any good, so I really need to find my peace with it and find a way to take advantage of it. So far, the pain level has been minimal, but as soon as the nerve block pump dies out, I may be singing a different tune. Sixty-five years old and paying for the recklessness of my youth. Football, basketball, bike wrecks, motorcycle endo’s, lifting more than I should have, falling in rivers rocks I refer to as buttered basketballs and me trying to stay upright with round-bottomed souls of my wader boots. Hopefully, this is the last if the surgeries and I can go on to enjoying my senior years like the rest of the elderly, grumpy about everything but laughing on the inside that at least I don’t have to work anymore.
Retirement visions have certainly taken a turn from the original plans, but they aren’t that far out of reach. We have the toys to enjoy life, everything from mowing to fishing all come at an easier pace and with equipment to make it easy to accomplish. Fishing from a boat will certainly be easier than standing in the rivers of Colorado and Wyoming. I can still fly fish, but now I can do it from the comfort of a chair. If that’s possible, I’ve yet to try, but casting and retrieving is certainly easier these days if using a spinning rod. And if your just sticking a minnow on a hook and dropping it over the side, well you could read a book while listening to the radio waiting on the tug. Heck, even a nap might be in order. After this foot surgery, has healed, I hope to get back into some hunting too. Especially bird hunting for pheasant, quail, or any of the other upland game birds. I’ve had the offer to go duck and goose hunting too, something I have never experienced before, but would love to try. Heck, I can always use another excuse to buy another shotgun. The only vision I think I’ve given up on is international travel. Never really had much desire to go anywhere outside of this continent, but it has become more and more of a thought put on the shelf. There is so much to see in Canada, Alaska, Hawaii, and the lower forty-eight states, that I’m not sure we could see everything we would want too in the last quarter of our life. I’d love to sell our place in Hawaii as it really is becoming less appealing spending the money for airline tickets and putting the trip on a credit card only to work like heck at getting it paid off before taking another trip to somewhere else. Now Jen has other plans and would still look to journey outside of the country, especially to see more of the European countries. Just need to find her a travel buddy as my replacement for me, but I don’t think we’d have to look very far. National Parks, sightseeing the major cities of this country all seem more my style of vacation. But mostly, I’d like to just enjoy the life we have built here and put energy into that enjoyment and not into the creation of it.
One good thing about this recovery process is that I’ll get caught up on watching the old movies I love. Cheyenne Social Club and McClintock at the top of the list, but I’ve already rewatched Dune 1 & 2 in prep for the release of the third movie in the trilogy later this year. Hello Dolly, Charade, and the many westerns I’ve been longing to see again are all saved in my stuff on the various streaming platforms. I’m finding movies I had long forgotten about and the list is growing, heck I have at least six weeks to laze and gaze at my them all. Jen is joining me in the evening to watch our series shows in bed. I hope to get so tired of watching shows and movies that it’s a long time before I do so again on a regular basis.
Another passion is reading. For some reason I have felt for a long time that I just don’t have time to read. I won’t have that excuse anymore, at least for the next few weeks. I’ve long enjoyed reading Malcom Gladwell’s social studies of people. When I was working, there was a lot of application in what I read, these days it is for the fun of it. I’m reading his book “Talking to Strangers”. I’m absorbed in the notion of how we look so hard for the truth in people that we ignore the signs of dishonesty in them. His examples of famous cases that were in the news for weeks and we were flabbergasted that these people got away with the things they did and shocked that people looked the other way. He is making an understanding of why these cases went on for so long and how we look for the truth and belief in others instead of questioning them, especially people that are in positions of trust in our eyes. These aren’t the hardened criminals we see daily on TV, no these are teachers, coaches, doctors, and others in positions of respect that do dastardly things right in front of us and we don’t believe our lying eyes. Hopefully, I’ll get a few fun stories in too that take you away to some imaginary world of fantasy or days gone by in the wild west. My passion of reading to return would be the gift I could really use right now.
Then there is writing. I don’t call myself a writer, I’m more a simple blogger trying to clear my mind of the dancing thoughts in my head all day long. Lately, there has been less dancing and more wishing for something to write about, but maybe it’s just my list of honey-do’s has been so long, that I haven’t been able to wrestle with my thoughts as much on the political crap of this president and his minions, or all the other things in life that stand in your way of clear thought and peace daily. I plan to pick this back up and am trying hard not to be the grumpy old guy writing about what I hate and instead would like to write about things I love. Things like tying a fly and then catching a beautiful brown trout and landing it. Maybe I’ll catch back up on expanding on the stories from my book that I’ve never been able to finish. Well maybe that would be a good place to focus my attention and finally finish it and get it bound for gifts to my kids. Don’t have illusions of selling a memoir, who the hell would want to know more about my life other than my kids and I’m not sure they would either?
Mostly, in this sabbatical time of healing, I’d really like to feel I am back on top of my life and controlling it and not letting life pull me along for some bumpy ride I don’t always enjoy. At my age, life should be more in a clear view of where my life is going and most importantly, where it might end some day with happiness that I did what I wanted with no regrets. I may not do everything I wanted, but hopefully I feel I did enough. I’m not sure what enough would actually be, but if enough is something tangible that you can truly say that it was done, then that would be great and I would feel accomplished. That is after all what we all want, to feel some sort of accomplishment and that we didn’t just waste our time piddling in the garage and leaving things undone. If it takes six weeks to find my way again, if for no other reason, this recovery and being laid up again will be worth it.