Oh My Aching Ass
The poor woman who works at the convenience store suffers from arthritis in her knees.
I have it in my feet.
We have a real tendency to commiserate.
"How are you this morning?" I asked on Friday.
"Oh my aching ass," she said. "I can hardly walk."
We laughed.
I showed her the air casts that I've taken to wear on both feet. I told her about how hopeful I had been about mid-week.
"But it didn't work out," I said.
Yet we aren't the only ones; that's for sure.
"I have it in my hands," the next guy in line said. "There are days when I can't even pick up a pen."
He was filling out lottery tickets. A million dollar prize wouldn't take the pain away.
"Doc says it doesn't go away either," I said.
"Nope," he answered. "Just take the pills and try and survive the side effects."
I paid for my paper and headed for the door. The clerk and the lottery dude went off in another direction about their particular pains and I thought about a line from an old Bob Seger song:
"No one walks between the rain."
And that is it.
Everyone has a pain of some sort, somewhere along the way. Whether it's physical pain, or mental pain, or just an old aching ass it has to be dealt with.
Every day.
"This poor guy," my beautiful wife said as she began to tell me about her work day, "He's in the chair for kidney disease and he told us today that he went to his cancer doctor and was told that he has just 3 months to live. I feel so bad for him."
(How's that for putting foot pain into perspective?)
"How old is he?" I asked, as if three months time was enough if he had reached a certain age.
"70."
"That's not enough."
And just two weeks away from my 50th birthday I started thinking.
Arthritis sucks to be sure.
But so do a whole lot of other things.
Keep kicking back.
I have it in my feet.
We have a real tendency to commiserate.
"How are you this morning?" I asked on Friday.
"Oh my aching ass," she said. "I can hardly walk."
We laughed.
I showed her the air casts that I've taken to wear on both feet. I told her about how hopeful I had been about mid-week.
"But it didn't work out," I said.
Yet we aren't the only ones; that's for sure.
"I have it in my hands," the next guy in line said. "There are days when I can't even pick up a pen."
He was filling out lottery tickets. A million dollar prize wouldn't take the pain away.
"Doc says it doesn't go away either," I said.
"Nope," he answered. "Just take the pills and try and survive the side effects."
I paid for my paper and headed for the door. The clerk and the lottery dude went off in another direction about their particular pains and I thought about a line from an old Bob Seger song:
"No one walks between the rain."
And that is it.
Everyone has a pain of some sort, somewhere along the way. Whether it's physical pain, or mental pain, or just an old aching ass it has to be dealt with.
Every day.
"This poor guy," my beautiful wife said as she began to tell me about her work day, "He's in the chair for kidney disease and he told us today that he went to his cancer doctor and was told that he has just 3 months to live. I feel so bad for him."
(How's that for putting foot pain into perspective?)
"How old is he?" I asked, as if three months time was enough if he had reached a certain age.
"70."
"That's not enough."
And just two weeks away from my 50th birthday I started thinking.
Arthritis sucks to be sure.
But so do a whole lot of other things.
Keep kicking back.
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