Asymmetric Haunting
These things come back to haunt you.
I've realised that over the years, every unilateral injury I've ever taken has been on the right side of my body. Shoulder, foot, various ungainly ruptures of connective tissue and integument, either to the right side alone or to both sides.
It's a bit like what they used to call 'warrior wounds', mostly on the non-shield side. The thing they never tell you is that the muscles develop warped, trying to compensate for problems of balance and mobility.
Some of my right neck muscles, for some reason, are about double the diameter of their left neck counterparts. My right shoulder has an annoying habit of moving forward faster than my left shoulder, and my right knee is bigger than my left.
I would never have noticed, actually. One day, though, I was doing stretching exercises on the floor when I realised one reason I couldn't stretch as far in one direction was that one of my legs was about 8 mm longer than the other and the other was chunkier.
Over the years, my back muscles have tried to compensate for the slight skew in posture. As a result, almost all my back pains are on the right side, both upper and lower back. The only time I have no back pains is when I've been relaxing in the water a long time or when I've had a particularly good massage.
Nowadays, when I hear about the injuries people like JJ and Tim have suffered, I feel sorry not because of the immediate trauma, but because I can just imagine what it will be like two decades or more later.
These things never really go away. But the haunting intensifies, as if they keep reminding you, "Hey, you killed us when you were younger; now, you will never be free of us." Sigh.
I've realised that over the years, every unilateral injury I've ever taken has been on the right side of my body. Shoulder, foot, various ungainly ruptures of connective tissue and integument, either to the right side alone or to both sides.
It's a bit like what they used to call 'warrior wounds', mostly on the non-shield side. The thing they never tell you is that the muscles develop warped, trying to compensate for problems of balance and mobility.
Some of my right neck muscles, for some reason, are about double the diameter of their left neck counterparts. My right shoulder has an annoying habit of moving forward faster than my left shoulder, and my right knee is bigger than my left.
I would never have noticed, actually. One day, though, I was doing stretching exercises on the floor when I realised one reason I couldn't stretch as far in one direction was that one of my legs was about 8 mm longer than the other and the other was chunkier.
Over the years, my back muscles have tried to compensate for the slight skew in posture. As a result, almost all my back pains are on the right side, both upper and lower back. The only time I have no back pains is when I've been relaxing in the water a long time or when I've had a particularly good massage.
Nowadays, when I hear about the injuries people like JJ and Tim have suffered, I feel sorry not because of the immediate trauma, but because I can just imagine what it will be like two decades or more later.
These things never really go away. But the haunting intensifies, as if they keep reminding you, "Hey, you killed us when you were younger; now, you will never be free of us." Sigh.
etched with acid at 1:32:00 pm
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