The Invisible Injury

Growing up, I think we all hear the same things from old(er) folks. Insight and advice and laments and observations that don't really register. Stuff that, essentially, adds up to, "I didn't really think it would happen to me, either, but you'll know what I'm talking about someday."

Which, of course, is not always true. We won't all know what it's like to have lost a leg in Vietnam or to lose our life savings in an elaborate gardening misadventure or to find out that we actually killed our father and married our mother and then gouge our eyes out.

I mean, we all can do anything we want in this world, right? So there's time. It's just not likely.

One of the things that I'd (blessedly) managed to avoid was the aches and pains that so many people talk about as they get older. Until recently, I'd have a sore muscle and then it would go away--either because I tweaked my ankle walking down the street or I slept on my neck wrong.

Lately, though? My knees hurt. I might have tweaked the right one working out, but giving it time to heal hasn't done much good... and now my left one is starting to feel bad, too. Maybe it's feeling neglected in my allocation of attention. I dunno.

Perhaps these are isolated, temporary, aches and pains... like so many in the past. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

The thing that I'm more concerned about? My voice. My speaking voice gets dry and raspy at the drop of a hat nowadays and my falsetto singing voice is just... gone. It's been about a month now and I think I'm more worried that I won't be able to sing Grace Kelly than I am that my legs will hurt when I change sleeping positions.

My voice has left me before, of course. My singing voice has disappeared before--late 2007/early 2008 it was gone for about three months, and when we went to Las Vegas in 2009, I couldn't even singing Stayin' Alive--but I always got the sense that it would come back. I always had confidence that, like the bruised tailbone I received in November, 2002, it would linger for a bit and then one day I'd wake up and all would be right again.

But maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time I will never recover, and I will have my singing options reduced permanently. And maybe, just maybe, some day I will tell the story to some young person about how I didn't really think it would happen to me, either, but he'll know what I'm talking about someday.