So what's happened in the past two years . . . well during the height of the pandemic in 2020, I sold my house and bought a new one in the neighborhood my wife and kids had been asking to move to for years. Evidently the nine mile commute to school, on country roads, never in traffic, was too much for everyone to bear much longer. Really, it had nothing to do with the commute and everything to do with the zip code, the mom group and the minor detail that the house is one mile from my in-laws. Just as an aside, if you are thinking about moving up-market to appease your spouse or in some way hoping it will ease the complaints, I assure you, it will not. Zip code changes, increased square footage and proximity to your in-laws will not mitigate the litany of first-world problems.
Because I stopped lifting and there was no gym equipment to be found anywhere, I had to row, run, and do pushups. One day while trying to install irrigation for new sod I was laying in our new backyard, I attempted to strip an old electrical wire and it the midst of trying to sheathe the hardened plastic, I pulled apart so hard I tore my subscap, biceps tendon, labrum and ruined my right shoulder (I'm right handed). Evidently heavy lifting for 20 years with no breaks places your tendons in a precarious situation when you stop lifting altogether. That fun little surgery to rebuild my shoulder was a fun Halloween present to myself.
As one does after they have a major surgery, I had the pleasure of going to physical therapy. On my second day at PT while doing farmer carry with a kettlebell, the doctor suggested I do both arms so as not to create a structural imbalance. In my infinite wisdom, I bent down and picked up the 30kg kettlebell with my left arm (not more weight than I can lift) without positioning my legs or my torso correctly and guess what, I tore everything in the left shoulder as well. Yes, I had the exact same surgery on my left shoulder that I had on my right, a mere five weeks apart. Positive note, there was only really a few days of having to wear two arm slings (imagine using the bathroom and showering).
Few challenging things I found with two surgically repaired shoulders that were not healed. Putting on t-shirts is an awkward movement. Showering and washing the back side or your arms and torso is a really awkward movement, pretty much the entire posterior for that matter. Cooking a turkey and cutting it on Thanksgiving was definitely a challenge becasue evidently shoulder strength is essential for using a knife. Hanging Christmas lights on the house, also not a fun chore. Lastly, to anyone who reads this that lives in pain, who goes to sleep in pain, who is awoken because sleeping causes pain, I feel your pain, it's debilitating and really unhealthy mentally to suffer in constant physical pain.
Nonetheless, 2020 was one to remember for so many reasons.
Tomorrow we'll cover how life continued to find ways to challenge my mental health in 2021.
ACJ
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