Facing a New Day

As days turn to months

turn to years,

you find things once unimaginable

no longer so absurd.

.

From running 5Ks

to barely able to walk.

From dating apps

to isolation.

.

Oh, but you’re never alone.

The pain is your constant companion.

Not some inner spiritual sort, to be clear.

Throbbing, stabbing, debilitating,

demoralizing.

.

Not the metaphysical.

Very much the physical.

.

For years this has gone on.

When it wasn’t my knees,

it was my calves and ankles.

Something always letting me down.

Leaving me

to drown.

.

Just as you come to accept it,

so, too, do those around you.

They stop asking, stop caring,

move on with their lives.

And leave you behind.

.

Let me be clear:

I did not take these injuries sitting down.

For the most part, anyway.

I exercised, stretched,

took far too many NSAIDs.

.

And sometimes, progress would occur.

Enough to allow me to dream of tomorrow.

Only for it to be snatched away.

A new injury, a misstep:

always something to pull me

back down.

.

Until finally, you find yourself complacent.

Limited mobility is still mobility, is it not?

You can still walk, and that’s a blessing.

Let them joke about “Steve’s bad knees.”

Someday, they’ll understand.

.

Understand the strength

it takes to face each new day.

Understand the perseverance

to not let the demons win.

.

Until, at the start of this year,

I said, “Let’s try it again.”

I made the error, though I knew better:

.

I dared

to hope.

.

I didn’t do it for them.

I did it for me.

.

At first, the pain was worse,

and I wondered what the hell I was even doing.

But physical therapy worked its magic

and the milestones came rolling in.

.

Mundane things not so mundane:

I got out of a seat without pain,

I squatted to pick something off the floor,

I ran a lap around a building.

.

Still, nothing quite compares

to the emotional moment

when I got on the floor

and greeted the shoeboxes under my bed

for the first time in years.

.

Even so, the pain persists

but never greater than when I began this journey

and some days, less.

Oh, and those are glorious days.

.

And even when the pain returns

the progress remains.

I still squat, lunge, stretch,

and soldier my way forward.

.

Now I find myself taken with new emotion.

Not dread or despair as in the old days.

Not even so much hope

as impatience.

.

Me, who didn’t dare to dream

of a brighter tomorrow.

Now pushing to get a move on

and get there already.

.

All that pain:

physical, mental, emotional.

Try as it might

it never broke me.

.

So I embrace this frustration,

born of underlying optimism,

of hope.

.

I turn to my new-found companion and say,

“Lead the way.”