"I'm Getting Old" Says The Man Under 30

So for over the last week or so I've been getting over a really painful hip injury. A sharp, nearly unbearable pain has been shooting from my right hip, making it hard for me to lift my leg, walk or even get into bed without groaning in agony. Sleep has been terribly uncomfortable and I had a few days of sleepless nights because of the stabbing pain and discomfort caused by my ailment. At first, I thought it was just some freak injury and the pain would disappear in a couple of days after implementing the RICE method. When the pain didn't go away, I went to look up the injury online and listed the symptoms to find out that it may very likely be a hip strain which is typically a sports injury or caused by a fall.

So what was the cause of my hip feeling like crap? Nothing. I have no friggin' clue why it's been hurting like the dickens. I haven't been outside playing sports in Houston's sauna type heat, are you kidding me? It's hotter and more humid than the undercarriage of a sumo wrestler out there! I've been a couch potato lately. The only thing I could think of is that I went to sleep after doing absolutely nothing active and woke up to feeling like Hulk Hogan after dropping 90 patented leg drops on cement.

Usually these type of ailments and pains leads to my wife teasing me that I'm an old man. It doesn't help my cause that I've been reeking of Icy Hot all week and been popping Advil daily. But I guess it is true. It's life's wake-up call that I'm not an invincible 17 year old anymore. When I'm feeling like a cripple when all I did was watch several episodes of "Louie" on Netflix, change my daughter's diapers and ate Taco Bell--I AM getting old.

Boy back in the day I felt unstoppable. In my teenage years, I was finally getting my fat butt into shape, weightlifting a ton, playing lots of basketball, trying to be a Pakistani Nate Robinson by trying to work myself up to dunking on a 10 foot rim. I was full of myself. I was stuck in that fantasy sort of thinking--as if I were some heroic He-Man. All puffed up with pride from gaining muscle mass, I dared someone to challenge me to a duel so I could bodyslam them on the pavement. But then one fateful day, I tore my ACL at the tender age of 17 playing hoops and the recovery process brought me to the realization that the human body is fragile. 

Is that teenaged John Cena in the middle there?

On top of that, another reality dose of me aging is my once thick plentiful mound of hair thinning out. I'm most likely going to be bald a lot sooner than 40, probably by choice because I don't want this terrible patchwork of thin balding spots and thick hair. I've read about it long before I had to even worry about it and I thought at the time I wouldn't really care but yeah man, losing your hair is a really humbling experience. Like geez, I'm literally seeing my youth fading away every time I shampoo and see follicle after follicle get caught between my fingers. 

I get that I'm still very young and ideally have a lot of healthy years left. I'm only 28 as of this post and I'm ruminating about this crap that's really insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Aging happens to everyone, some faster than others. Some people mask it well or take care of their bodies and intake to the point where they can postpone it, but it hits us all sooner than we'd like.

In the end, I'll take it as a reminder that this life is temporary and that our spirits will outlive our bodies. After all, we are spiritual beings and our body is just a temporary vessel in this life. Just like our favorite whips (cars to the non-hip. Or maybe that term is outdated and it's something else) paint starts to wear off and get scuffed up and engine eventually fails on us, our bodies will do the same and show us our fleeting mortality.

So I'm at peace with the fact that I'm going to be a baldy sooner than I'd want and Icy Hot may very well be my cologne in the very near future. It's cool, at least it's gonna be fun crapping on all the stuff that the youngins are into and telling "back in my day" stories.