Small Indignities

Breadcrumbs from the universe

Still climbing!

Once upon a time, I rounded a track four times in just over four minutes.

Equally, I could rage into the wee hours of the morning and still knock off a sixteen-mile run at sunrise. For many years, I would lace up my running shoes on a whim and run hard for more than an hour, Chariots of Fire theme song in my head.

These days, I’ve traded running shoes for hiking boots, thanks to a surgically repaired hip. Now I climb mountains. I’ve replaced the five-minute miles of yore with slow treks upward. The views are beautiful.

All things considered, not a bad tradeoff. A small indignity.

Earlier this year, my wife and I trekked Mt. Kilimanjaro, one of the world’s seven summits. On the final day, we descended eleven thousand feet on steep, uneven, slippery rock, a semi-comical day of ego-shrinking enrichment.

I fell so many times I lost count. Essentially, I fell down the mountain, lacking all grace. I performed pratfalls that would make a stunt man proud, a bad version of Jim Carrey with a backpack. The mountain was unmoved.

A few of the falls were memorable enough to alarm fellow trekkers. As I regained my senses, sprawled on the trail, I wondered: “Geez, did that break anything?”

On balance, these are small indignities, fodder for laughter, fuel for enlightenment, the price of adventure. After all, I get to climb beautiful mountains. Kilimanjaro was the adventure of a lifetime.

Today’s post is about life’s small indignities, the necessary concessions we make to age, external forces and our own vulnerability. They are breadcrumbs from the universe that offer wisdom and insight if we apply humor, patience and adaptability.

To be sure, this has not come easily to me. I’m stubborn. To paraphrase Dylan Thomas, I do not go gently into the good night. Too often, I blindly power through small indignities. I rage on, sometimes stupidly and to bad effect. Insight comes eventually.

A recent sampling of little indignities:

A missed flight connection that caused me to turn around without reaching my final destination. A dead car battery that stranded me for two hours in a parking lot on a cold rainy night. A broken electronic door that locked me out of the house at 6 a.m. on a wintry day.

I laugh at these now, all learning experiences. Perhaps our ancestors invented humor just for these occasions. If so, I thank them.

As I get older, the hardest indignities for me are physical ones. Case in point:

This summer, my wife and I joined a local pickleball league with gusto. At first, we did quite well. But pickleball is the great dispenser of wisdom to aging athletes.

That day, it delivered a bolt of wisdom to my right calf. As I lunged for a net shot, I felt a pop and sharp pain. I spun around to see what hit me. Nothing but ghosts.

If someone had captured this moment, it would no doubt be hilariously funny to others and deeply embarrassing to me. Will Ferrell would be proud.

In short, I blew my calf out. Vanity intact, I stubbornly played the rest of the match, hobbling around the court. My empathetic colleagues suggested we call it a day but I’d have none of it. I did not go gently.

The calf injury took a month to fully heal, abetted by a calf sleeve, ice packs and Advil. Similarly, my wife abdicated her first-place ranking in the league due to a shoulder injury. As two former collegiate athletes with a fierce competitive streak, these subtle indignities are hard to take.

Against these indignities, my wife and I have amassed an arsenal of Theraguns, gels, heat pads, ice packs, orthotics and leg and arm sleeves. We share a physical therapist who is a shaman for aging athletes (referral available on request).

The universe is patient. It is undefeated. Eventually, even I come around. If I can’t run, I climb. When I can’t climb, I’ll swim. And there’s always Peloton and Versa. (I will not do Pilates, no disrespect to those who do.)

I am not alone. I often swap stories with friends about blown knees, surgically repaired shoulders, tendonitis and bad backs. Rites of passage for the middle aged.

These physical trials become character tests as you age. They teach adaptability and reinvention. This is true for work and career as well. I see it all around me.

As the world changes, as organizations change, as technology changes, we must change and evolve. Once again, the universe offers us breadcrumbs for guidance, best approached with curiosity, patience and an open mind.

Sometimes the signals are subtle. Sometimes they are not. Sometimes they’re like falls on Kilimanjaro or a blown calf on the pickleball court. Electric jolts of enlightenment. They can be unpleasant.

Reorganizations. Layoffs. Burnout. Feeling the pull of something different, a new direction, an untraveled path.

My wife is a role model for reinvention. She is in her fifth career as a social worker. Never happier, she helps veterans with cancer at the local VA hospital. I’m on career three. I suspect I have a couple more ahead of me. I’m filled with curiosity.

To be clear, I still begrudge the small indignities. I take time to process. I sometimes rage against an unfair world, against an aging body. Occasionally, as I did on Kili, I wonder, “Have I broken something?”

Mostly I am intact and optimistic, wiser for the journey.

These days, I do my best to laugh at my foibles, which grow more plentiful by the day. More breadcrumbs from the universe. I seek to learn. To adapt. To persist. To reinvent. To take two steps forward, one step back. To reset and begin again.

I will not go gently in the good night. Rage on.