All Stretching for Old Men

The great thing about being an aging Millennial man is having access to information that my father, papaw, and forefathers didn't have. The bad thing about being an aging Millennial is having access to information that my father, papaw, and forefathers didn't have, because it means I don't have any excuse to not do the things I need to do!

I have had some kind of hip problem for the better part of a decade which initially showed itself as something like a UTI. I didn't know it at the time but that was the initial, painful experience of pelvic floor syndrome which is a fun way to say that your shit gets rocked.

My symptoms where unrelenting pain in the hip, groin, and the feeling like I had to use the bathroom urgently all the time. It's not a fun experience and kinda ruined my thirties. Well not kinda, completely ruined my thirties as I became a housebound, non-dating maniac who was chronically in pain. Something I hadn't experienced before but really takes up the majority of your mind when you have it.

You feel it, think about it, think about it getting better, think about it getting worse, ignore it, but it's always there. Like some kind of barbwire static in your mind, never relenting. I hated it. I still do. It's much better now. Because of stretching and slow (painfully slow) movements that build into a little better and little better. I don't know if it will ever truly be fixed.

I'm in the middle of looking for a possible hernia buried deep in my groin that I may have missed the other time I looked for a hernia. I don't think I have one. I might. I hope as it would be a quick and easy fix. I'm doubtful, but I need to know for sure.

In the meantime I stretch, mix in hip mobility movements which is just fancy dynamic stretching really. Just to get ever so slightly better. And I try to do it again unless I don't because I think I don't need it because I've been feeling better. Then that afternoon I remember that I need to do it everyday. I'm older, recovery takes time, and I need to be consistent I remind myself.

I used to tell my dad and papaw these things when they were recovering from an injury. I thought I knew what time and consistency looked like. I had no clue. Not until I hit my forties.

And so this morning I did not stretch and I regret that. And I will try to do it this evening after work. And I will try to do it again tomorrow morning and the next day and the next. And hope that a year from now I did it enough times in a row that the pain is a distant, awful memory and I can enjoy getting older and easing into the chronic pain.