There is No Benefit to Hiding What I am Truly Feeling.
My health and wellness have always been my anchor.
Having lived in a state that battles it out for 50th place in health and wellness each year, I know that being healthy, active, and fit does not come without its own challenges and temptations.
But no matter how much fried food, day-drinking, and salt have been put in front of me, my commitment to my health and wellness has prevailed.
Which makes it all the more disheartening when, today, my body turns around and indicates it is not up to the assignment.
To rewind for a moment, when I finished my swimming career in 2009, my left shoulder joint was hanging by a thread.
Long story short, I had managed to circumnavigate my way through a torn labrum for 18 months so as to ensure I wouldn’t have to finish my swim career early.
While I did this with prehab and rehab a plenty, the main cost came in the form of the rest of my body having to pick up the slack for the weakness in my left shoulder.
At the time, I never doubted or questioned the approach because the goal mattered more than any of the costs to make it happen.
And I am proud to say I didn’t just survive these 18 months— I swam my fastest times in the last 18 months of my career.
I defied the belief of physicians and medical experts all in pursuit of achieving lifelong goals of breaking 2:00 in the 200-meter backstroke long course meters (August, 2008 – 1:59.68 – BOOM! For you non-swimmers, this is a big deal).
But throughout that chapter, when alone with my thoughts, there was one emotion that reigned above all others.
I was sad.
Sad to think of what I could do with a healthy body, that I might be losing opportunities that I otherwise could have, and especially when the reality of the copious time spent deep in physical therapy would hit me.
And 17 years on from that very chapter, these emotions have crept back in.
I’m just sad.
Turns out that the torn labrum diagnosis is a thing with old Steve-o, but this time its the left hip.
I spent all of 2023 slowly picking up running after deciding to train for a 10k in the final months of 2022.
I felt it almost from the beginning of 2023, just a nagging ache, but I could manage and dismiss it as just my old, former swimmer joints not appreciating being on land.
Until I got serious about training for a half marathon, and it wasn’t an ache anymore, it was a pain, one that I had to treat with prehab, rehab, and maintenance.
And I crushed the half marathon (for me), which meant I could just keep this same process going right?
Turns out, you notice your hip wayyyy more than your shoulder in every day life, especially running after your kids at home, and halfway through last year, it was time for me to get confirmation.
Boom (the wrong kind of boom). Torn labrum.
I knew it wasn’t the running that caused the issue. I just have a lot of mileage and irritation on parts of my body that most don’t, leaving me vulnerable to this happening.
Fast forward 8 months from the diagnosis to today, I’ve refrained from the surgery but removed running and weight-bearing exercise.
And while that helps me physically, the sadness remains.
Is this it? As I round the bend on my 40th lap of the sun, will this injury and impending surgery (he says knowing there is never a good time for 4 weeks no driving and a 6 month rehab) be what takes my anchor away?
My health, wellness, and fitness is more than a part of me— it is me!!!
People associate it with who I am and what I represent.
People tell me that my commitment to health and fitness inspires and motivates them.
I am damn proud of making this my lifelong anchor, which does me no favors in how I feel right now.
The sadness I feel represents a person who aspires to be more but is limited, who loves being at his best but knows he currently isn’t, and who wants to be happy in his anchor but simply cannot get to that headspace.
23-year-old Steve believed he could persevere and get through it, and 39-year-old Steve thinks the same.
But that’s the thing about perseverance, while it’s a mindset that fuels a healthy response, it’s not supposed to dismiss the sadness that comes along for the ride.
So while I persevere and find a way to move forwards.
I’m just sad.