The Little Man

 "What are we doing in this often undignified circus that is life?  What the hell is going on with our ridiculous bodies and our even more ridiculous relationship between our bodies and minds?  How is anybody supposed to get through 30, 40, 50, 60 (!) years with some modicum of grace on this sweaty, crusty orb?  What happens when progressing upward, toward greater heights of achievement, ceases to be a realistic goal?  How do you respond when you've spent your whole life trying to get fitter, faster, stronger and you start getting slower and weaker anyway?

The biggest of these discoveries is the idea that physical pursuits, which on the surface may seem like a way of trying to fend off death, are actually a way to accept it.  Every day you check in with your body.  For a while you get better and then you get worse.  It's a hell of a thing to face day after day.  What's 'winning' once you've summitted the crest and begun the descent, anyway?  How do you do nothing when the doctor looks at your bum shoulder and says: 'Yep.  It's frozen.  Not much to do about it.  It'll resolve in a year or two.  Or not.'  The path to enlightenment is not always marked by grand new achievements and personal bests."

My physician here in town is definitely a curmudgeon.  He really doesn't give a shit what I think about anything.  He tells me what he thinks and then encourages me to do whatever I want to do.  He always writes down what I say so I'm real careful about what I say because he'll bring it up later down the road if I try to get away with some bullshit.  If I say I'm going to do something I goddamn better do it.  "Collaborative Medicine" he calls it.  "Evidence Based" he calls it.  He shows me the facts; he goes over a whole variety of different approaches; and then asks me what I want to do.  Which is for him to tell me what the fuck to do.  He's the fucking doctor, right?  He's a short guy so SuperK and I call him - not to his face - "The Little Man."  We're both afraid of The Little Man.  He's not into coddling otherwise healthy people when they come in with some minor complaints.  He'll jot down some notes while mumbling things like "barely noticeable" or "mild symptoms" or "... will resolve on its own."  God forbid I ask for antibiotics if I have a cold.  I go in for my yearly physical and I go in when I'm really worried about something . . . which is not too often.

The italicized text above is from a review of a book by Alison Bechdel called "The Secret to Superhuman Strength."  I gotta read this one.  It makes me feel better when I understand that other people are going through what I'm going through.  This is one of the strengths of Alcoholics Anonymous.  We're not doing it alone.