I think it may be my age. Maybe it's my weight. It could be my consistent lack of exercise or maybe my lack of consistent exercise. It's probably a combination of all of the above but the bottom line is, I'm sore. I wake up in the morning sore and I go to bed sore. Is this how it's going to be for the rest of my life, because if it is, according to the Social Security calculator, I'm going to have to put up with being sore for the next 27.6 years. That's a pretty long time being sore.
You're probably thinking, what's the big deal as you've been sore after a big workout and you're only 22 years old or you remember being sore a lot after those double sessions while playing high school football. Pretty much after any good sized workout or some kind of strenuous work, you find yourself sore. Here's the difference between that kind of soreness and the kind I'm suffering from: in my younger years I might be sore for a day or two and then I would actually feel better than I did prior to the workout that led to my being sore to begin with. Today, I get sore and never stop being sore. Actually, I can't really say "I get sore" because it's simply become the state of my being. I no longer have to do anything to "get sore" because I already "am" sore before I do anything. If I also happen to do something, anything, I have a good chance of being even more sore than usual.
It's not all painful and sad (actually it is) but if you have the right attitude, it can be fun. How can being sore be fun, you ask? Like anything else, you try to make the best of any situation. My favorite "being sore" game that I like to play is trying to figure out what I did yesterday to make me so sore today. I vividly remember the very first time I got to play this game. I was only 31 years old and although I wasn't in particularly good physical shape, I certainly wasn't in really bad shape either. Anyway, I wake up one morning and feel as though I am paralyzed from the waste down. I can hardly walk. It hurts as I drag myself out of bed. The wheels in my head are spinning, "What the hell did I do yesterday to be in such pain today?" I can't figure it out. I didn't partake in any kind of sporting activity. Maybe I built an addition on the house, nope, didn't do that either. Finally, through process of elimination I figure out what has me in such agony. I planted tulips in the garden - about two dozen of them. Squatting down and planting two dozen tulips and I'm limping around like I had just finished my first triathlon. Pretty pitiful.
The tulip incident was just the first of what has become a fairly regular routine of hurting myself doing nothing. I've found myself winded after tying my shoes. I've pulled a muscle in my neck from yawning. If I throw in a stretch with that yawn, I risk pulling a back muscle as well. Like the old folks that I used to mock, I just back up the car without looking where I'm going rather than risk some traumatic debilitating injury by turning my head around It's gotten to the point where even a bowel movement can be a risky endeavor but maybe I'm getting a little too personal. The real pain is the psychological one I get from being sore from actually doing nothing. Chill out all day. Go to bed. Wake up. I can barely walk. As my kids are wont to say, WTF???
Because of this being sore all the time thing, I've had to make adjustments. Whereas I used to stretch in preparation for a workout, I now stretch in preparation to read the morning paper. I used to stop once during a drive to New York for gas and maybe to use a restroom somewhere around Hartford. My first stop now is at the rest area in Kennebunk so I can stretch and I might as well use the restroom because it's right here. If I don't stop to stretch several times during that trip I have trouble getting out of my car when I reach my destination. People sometime think I'm trying to escape from something as I open the door and basically roll out onto the street while my limbs slowly expand from their cramped up state to full length complete with the requisite cracking sounds. Yeah, I'm a mess, a painful, very sore mess. But there is an upside: only 27 years to go. I can do 27 years standing on my head - of course I'd have to do some serious stretching first.
