So much of life is mental, isn’t it? A cliche, I know. But some bit of wisdom endures across time, space, and cultures because it’s true, for all.
The last two weeks, I’ve been tethered to a device that is cleaning out and helping to heal a leg wound, now free of Basal cell skin cancer. My surgeon made an incision of 2 centimeters by 3 centimeters behind the right shin, just above the heel. I’ve written about this challenge here.
A few days ago, I met a friend on a walking path close to my home. She asked me about the tube hanging down my right leg below my shorts. I repeated my story and added, “For the first time in my life, I feel old.”
Now, I’m 77, decades beyond spring chicken status. And I’ve helped bury my two younger brothers this past year. By any reasonable measure, Old is what I YAM, with or without the spinach and the medicinal crutch.
Yet this temporary tubing has inflicted a Scarlet “I” on my identity, flashing “Invalid” not only to the world but to my psyche.
Yesterday, at the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, with a light rain shower, I, brace yourself, parked in one of the four clearly marked handicapped slots, rehearsing in my mind if necessary, “You see, officer, I can’t allow my right leg to get wet. I know, I should get a disability permit.”
Truth be told, if this lazy sod had spent two minutes putting on the rain sleeve cover he had picked up under a sunny sky at the same location the day before, he could have parked at one of the legal spaces across the street.
But, he kind of likes how he can work the I to his advantage, as in, “Rebecca, could we each mow half the yard this week?”
Until Rebecca said during dinner last night, firmly and kindly,
We don’t want this to become the new normal, do we, Paul?
The ‘this,’ of course, is my too easily accepted visa into the land of the frail. “That just won’t do,” she offered, “until it’s necessary. And you’re not there yet, not by a long shot. After all, a year ago, we were on Safari in Namibia.”
Bingo.
That’s why my recent health challenges, nothing unusual for a septuagenarian, have knocked me off what you might call my year-long Namibian high. You can read about our 14-day Namibian adventure here.
For this story, what I mean by Namibian high is the confidence both Rebecca, who is 74, and I got from doing something neither of us thought we could, at our age.
That’s why the photo of us under the Weaver Condominium is my favorite picture. It was taken on Safari Day 12, and it’s almost as if we are walking on air.
Every fiber of our being is more confident than when we boarded our plane in St. Louis for eight hours to Germany and eleven hours to Windhoek, Namibia. It’s like someone wound us up and let us go. If you look closely, you can see the energy key covered by our red Superman and Superwoman capes.
So, mind over matter can work, and will again, until our corporeal bodies give out. The trick is not to give in before it becomes necessary.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
