Midlife injuries happen. So does healing.

Rest, ice, and elevation as a spiritual practice

One day in early November, I woke up with pain radiating up the inside of my left calf. A day later, the top of my left foot felt tender to the touch. And a day after that, the whole thing swelled up, from the spot where my foot meets my toes to the flesh around my ankle bone.

I was perplexed, but thought I knew the answer. Back in the early summer, I’d whacked the top of my foot on the wooden handle of a recliner. It had been bruised and puffy for a few days. Now, two months later, I figured I somehow must have aggravated that old injury. And like it had before, I assumed it would heal on its own after a few days.

But it didn’t. Day after day my foot swelled up even more, and my ankle and inner calf stayed puffy and tender. Some days, it hurt—a lot—to put any weight on my left leg at all. My daily walks came to an abrupt halt. At the gym I avoided anything that put pressure on my foot or ankle or calf, which seriously reduces the number of weight-bearing activities one can do. I elevated, iced, and waited. And still, it didn’t get better.

A trip to the podiatrist’s office the day before Thanksgiving offered little clarity. The X-ray was clear of visible injury, and my doctor didn’t believe my current malady had much do to with my collision with the recliner handle. Instead, he chalked it up to poor ankle mobility, stress to the foot, and, oh yeah, age.

Sigh.

As much as I hate to give any fuel to the cliche that our bodies start falling apart after 40, I have to admit that the last several years do seem to have brought with them a previously-unprecedented number of ailments.

For example, bursitis of the knee. I developed a case while I was in the middle of an intensive yoga teacher training two years ago. Bursitis feels like an intensely tender spot that hurts in response to pressure, and made it excruciating to place my knee on the mat, even gently. I was practicing 10-15 times each week, and avoiding making any contact between my knee and the mat took some doing.

The bursitis took months to feel better, “and it’ll probably just keep coming back,” the orthopedic doctor gloomily informed me. (Also, could there possibly be a more geriatric-sounding affliction than “bursitis”? “Gout”, perhaps.)

A few months later, I developed a twinge in my shoulder that hurt all the time and severely limited my range of motion. For months, I could not turn my head to the right more than an inch or two, and had to turn my entire body to check my blind spot while backing out of a parking spot.

And last month I threw my back out shaving my legs.

Am I really getting injured more often now than I did in my 20s or 30s, or am I just noticing it more? Honestly, I’m not sure—but what has definitely changed is my reaction. These days, when I get an injury, I immediately panic. “That’s it! You’re on the downhill stretch now,” each tweak or twinge seems to indicate, and when recovery isn’t immediate, it feels as though it might never happen.

But it does. After following my doctor’s advice: more rest (frustrating, humbling, and also illuminating during the busy “mom does it all” holiday season), more time in supportive shoes, ice, and elevation—and, after being influenced by an effective Instagram ad, two daily sessions in toe-separator socks for good measure—my foot started to get better. I slowly resumed my walks, have been practicing yoga without pain, and plan to get back to regular workouts next week. My left foot and ankle are still a bit puffy, but not painful.

Life goes on.

The truth is, with all the dreary news about midlife ailments, at 46 it’s hard not to feel like I’m already losing precious ground in the fight against the effects of aging: shrinking muscle mass, waning balance, reduced flexibility.

There’s also the sense that, unlike in my 20s and 30s, I no longer have time to spare for the healing process. I have to get while the getting’s good; do All The Things while my body is still capable.

Logically, I know this is misguided: when I don’t give my body time to recover, I only lengthen the healing process. And conversely, when I live in fear of injury, I tend to move gingerly and unnaturally, making injury much more likely to happen.

So how do I walk the line between these two conflicting tendencies: the urge to push through out of frustration, or hold back out of fear? I think the key is in balancing acceptance of injury with its inverse, faith in recovery. Both are inevitable, and each has something to teach us.

Injury is part of life. That’s been true since I was a toddler, but yes: as I get older it’s possible that aches, pains, and ailments will be more and more prevalent.

But healing is part of life, too. It may happen more slowly than it used to, and I may have all kinds of feelings about the wait and the resulting “wasted” time and “lost” ground.

But it’s happening, and if I can have faith in it, maybe it will teach me something about what it means to live, to listen, and to let go.

P.S. If you’re a paid subscriber, did you catch the journal prompts for Week 3 in our So-Slow Book Club? And if you’re not yet a paid subscriber, we’d love for you to join us.