Pain and Growing Up

I never really got hurt as a kid. Hurt-hurt. The kind that involves casts and hospital visits. I might have even dreamed about a getting a signature from my crush on a plastered arm.

My boldness was wasted on my youth. We probably had nine lives back then, yet I didn’t need them. Scrapes and tumbles, rug burn, and perhaps a twisted ankle - truly the uncoordinated efforts of my adolescent self. Such were the heights and bounds of my playground injuries. I remember bravely and foolishly attempting a back walkover on the third day of gymnastics camp, falling straight on my face, and feeling a pang of hurt that was instantly replaced with the relief that falling wasn’t so scary. Fresh skin, nimble bodies - it didn’t matter because you bounced right back.

I sense that I’m older now, with ‘all’ my replete 25 years of life. I’ve been hurt quite a few times now. Yet, this is maybe the first time that I’ve felt physical pain so viscerally.

Last weekend, I made plans to meet up with a friend and one of his buddies. We had a fun day planned for the books; it would be a 100km bike ride for me down to the Beaches and back home. Our destination was the aptly-named ‘Balmy Beach’. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a reptile. I’m absolutely obsessed with the sun. I often describe my ideal temperature as being just slightly uncomfortably warm. It was a balmy 30+ degrees that day; the weather couldn’t have been more perfect for the occasion.

My trip took a wrong turn when my bike slid on a streetcar track by Woodbine and I got thrown off my bike, not even 3km away from Balmy. Streetcar tracks are treacherous. Any city biker could tell you this. Apparently, almost a third of all serious bike crashes in downtown Toronto are caused by streetcar tracks. I won’t advocate for bike lanes and road reform here, but I hope I’ve made my allegiance clear. As a newbie cyclist, and one who calls the suburbs home, this threat wasn’t even on my radar. I was just lucky that there were no cars in my immediate vicinity. Also fortunate that a kind passerby happened to be walking by with a bare-bones first aid kit.

It never hurts at first. It’s all adrenaline. The pain ferrets itself outwards slowly in the next few hours. Sometimes, I find it even takes a day or two for the deeper bruises to surface. Worse is when you deal with the aftereffects of a bad injury for months afterwards.

It’s rare to feel this type of pain as an adult. Physical pain from injury feels like something left in the realm of playthings and schoolyard squabbles. There’s a reason why band-aids come adorned with Disney characters and princesses. It feels like a mistake. As someone who has lived very intimately through the pains and tribulations of exercise injury, I’m quite careful with my body.

Despite this, my injury inventory reads more robust than desired, but is still fortunate in its superficiality:

Twenty-three stitches;
One second-degree burn;
A couple of cuts and scrapes;
Some bruises, calluses, sores, and the like.

None of these events has been particularly painful for me in my memory. I joked about getting in a fight with a chain-link fence as the doctor sewed up the entire length of my arm that fateful night, sixteen stitches. I laughed after searing my shin on a hot motorcycle cylinder, seeing that it formed a cute bubble.

There was also that particularly ungraceful hill bomb that dashed the hopes of my amateur skateboard career, but Michelle’s mom patched me up as we giggled at the childishness of it all and I squirmed in anticipation of the iodine.

In all these moments, I’ve laughed through the pain. I’ve always been enamoured with the story, the art of capturing a fine moment in time that I would live on proudly to tell and laugh about. Time wasn’t as precious, my responsibilities and burdens a lot fewer. The pain never cuts deep when you’re so entrenched in romanticism and youthful naivete.

I know now I have more to give, more to lose. That’s what makes this so painful. The physical pain is bearable. The real pain comes from fear. The fear of giving up meaningful aspects of my life that I’ve come to love so much. The fear of irreversibility; of not being the same afterwards, since I don’t have the comfort or liberty in knowing it’ll be all the same in two weeks.

The first time it happens, it’s a very sober realization. You feign amusement when you first bring it up to your friends. “I’m getting old,” you joke, recanting that time you made the risky call to reach for your phone from a precarious position on your bed - somehow saliently aware of the likelihood of injury - but also all too proud to heed to such warnings in your twenty-years-young glory. And in one swift motion, you’ve pulled your back for the first time.

It would be funny if it wasn’t the harbinger of something so sad. You’re perfectly mindful of the irony of your words and of being the very caricature of a yuppie who doesn’t appreciate what they have, and instead, being all too consumed with what they have to lose. But you know you are getting old. So what if it’s insensitive to talk about? We’re all really terrified of what’s to come. When you’re too young to truly know what it’s like, but old enough to start feeling it. Aren’t we all a little afraid of the unknown?

Preventative measures, they come.
And they seemingly come appropriately timed with my newfound corporate health insurance (tip my hat to The Man). It takes a certain type of person to prepare for the worst, and I’d argue that a life lived in fear is one that is devoid of fun. But we prepare, as much as we can afford to, have to, or are even willing to. You know to visit your physiotherapist when something feels off. You get custom insoles for your flat feet. You do cardio because it’s good for you, even though you hate it (until you start loving it). You even eat one less slice of pizza, because your metabolism has slowed to a crawl, much less a walk. You order the salad, this one time, and maybe the next. It’s not a panacea for the pain that comes with ageing, but it’s a security, and this healthy hope that the little things over time will add up.

This practice is challenging. I also feel like this is one of the greatest truths about becoming an adult. Sometimes I think I’m really good at it; other times, I feel like a wild animal with a complete lack of self-control.

Casey Johnston from ‘Ask a Swole Woman’ column fame wrote:

As humans, we are not quite biologically primed to process the abstract motivations that govern modern life. “Eat that food in front of you,” “run away from that bear,” “fall asleep because you’re so tired your eyes won’t stay open” — these things we can handle.

But eating healthy foods early in the day so as to not feel like shit later? Exercising to keep your blood pressure down? Going to bed because you have to wake up early every day this week, or because sleep deprivation leads to long-term cognitive decline?

Here we start to lose the thread. Part of becoming an adult is, supposedly, that you stop living moment to moment and start living for these more bigger-picture forces like middle- and long-term health.

This kind of control and conscious action is so hard to do - it’s connecting the future effects and consequences of doing things presently. That’s the core of discipline… very difficult, but so, so important to realize. It also has strong undercurrents of one part of stoic philosophy that I’m trying to practice (‘punishment can become pleasure’).

Injuries have been the worst part of being active, but sometimes they are also the most significant. They’ve told me I need to slow down. At one point, for maybe half a year, I was training like an semi-elite athlete, 3h+ every day, on top of my full-time job. I was exhausted, getting home at midnight some days, from my second iron-pumping session straight from the office; although I had left the house at 6:36am that morning and even went for a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu lesson during lunch.

60% of my diet consisted of hard boiled eggs, greek yogurt, fruits, bananas, cucumbers, and protein shakes (which pretty much also consisted of the same aforementioned ingredients). I’d get home to prepare my gym uniform and work outfit for the next day and pack breakfast in the fridge before racing to bed to get my five-six hours in. It was a lot, and I got used to how tired I was, but I think I might have loved it.

I remember this one time, getting home from a concert at 2am on a weekday (that was the summer of too many concerts), and knowing I had to be up at 5:50am to make it to a 6:15am barre class that I didn’t want to cancel on ClassPass and get penalized for. If I missed a day at the gym, I’d punish myself by going much harder the next time (I would say going two times, but that wasn’t really an aberration - in fact, there were several of us double duty regulars, acknowledging the elite crowd with a knowing nod. What I loved was that I felt super productive, and was forced to be so, at work also.

I found myself struggling to stay awake at 2pm many days, my eyes briefly fluttering closed by my desk. I now realize I was chronically sleep-deprived. I wore this as an odd badge of honour, congratulating myself for being so high-functioning on so few little hours of sleep. I lacked the time to pursue more academic hobbies, and saw my friends for purely social activities less, and would try to wrangle them into self-serving plans to play sports with me or run on the weekends. I was surprised I didn’t burn out completely or feel miserable about it.

When I got injured, I saw my body fat increase 3-5%, my muscle mass decline significantly, and the pounds pack on. I felt terrible about all the progress that I felt I reversed. Before this, I had never stopped, so I was fearful of what would happen when I did. When I started again, I was immediately disillusioned at being weaker, slower, more tired, and fatter than I was previous. But I got started again, and in a month or two, I realized that the road to regaining strength is not as difficult as I thought.

I can only sit and reflect on the marvel of seemingly reckless decisions I’ve made just a few years ago. I’ve hiked up active volcanoes in cheap sandals from Alibaba, recalling that a few people even stopped me on the rocky path to tell me I was brave (read: stupid).

I travelled through most of Southeast Asia on my grad trip with only a pair of flip flops, when my running shoes broke. When I started running, I never had to worry about the shoes I wore, foam rolling my shins, or doing strengthening exercises for my hips, knees, and ankles.

Someone I met on that grad trip messaged me a few days ago: “3 years from good times in japan!” I responded, “it’s been 3 years now? crazy!! how things have changed!” And I mean this in every single way. I feel like a whole new person, fully in awe of the outside world and also of the changes within. Our planet has been completely unravelling this year. Completely overtaken by the wreckage of COVID-19. The tides, they come and they go - and they lay awash a wholly new ecosystem. It’s been an appropriate period for everyone to slow down and rest our injuries.

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Cruel now is the glow of the sunlight begging me to come out and play in the delicious heat that is July in Toronto. It feels more than just an inconvenience right now. That stuff is superficial though. What is truly painful, is coming to terms with the fact that I’m no longer invincible. Seems like all the vagaries of our miraculous young bodies are all but a distant memory. The scars will look nasty this time, and they may take a few years to fully disappear. But I’m still fearful of the next time. When will it be the last time? When does pain become a state of permanence?

It’s simply too much to give up what I love. A life spent in hiding, and in fear, is not one I want to live. I’ve already been substituting running for cycling; high impact activities I love because I’m trying to be careful about prevention. I went to visit a sports doctor for a hip injury that I sustained two months ago, and still has seen no promise of healing. It was too expensive to justify going again. How do I know if I have the right kind of durable cartilage that will have me running half-marathons when I’m 60? Or the kind that breaks down when I tackle a flight of stairs when I’m 45?

I’m not afraid of ageing; I’m afraid of being withheld from the freedoms and endeavours I love to enjoy - because of physical factors outside of my control. I’m already longing for the youth that hasn’t even fully passed me yet. I really want to cherish it. The real pain is feeling like the best years are behind you, and knowing that you’re less capable than you once were. Knowing that this change is inevitable, irreversible, and accepting this with open arms and a (slightly more) mature conscience.

Yet my mind is the most mature it’s ever been. I realize I’m smarter, make better decisions, and have a greater sense of what I want and deserve - far more so than just five years ago. It’s not really a single moment; but after a passing of time, where you can look back and realize that twenty-years-old Jess is not someone that you can entirely relate to anymore. I was having this very conversation with a group of high school friends a month ago. Do you feel like a different person than who you were five years ago? You get some years put on your life, twenty to twenty-five. Some of us feel not too different, and that not much has changed. The other half feels that our new selves are completely unrecognizable from our former selves. I’ve always liked this little epigram by the French novelist, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (which has embarrassingly been my ‘deep quote’ caption on Facebook for a not insignificant amount of years).

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”, or “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.

Interpret this whichever way you want; but it tells me that no matter how much we appear to change or feel as if we are different people, there are still deeply ingrained humanistic and innate tendencies of our nature that will never change. In the face of time, in the face of challenge, and in the face of injury.

A more dismal interpretation may posit from this that change is futile and that very little truly changes; and this, I disagree with. We just have to remember that not everything changes along with us; and sometimes those are the strongest values that we hold close to our hearts. But important things change too. You probably know which things these are for you and to hold them close.