Day 324

Christmas will always have special meaning for me. And not especially good either.

I've never been an exceptionally big fan of Christmas. Not a terribly popular position to take, I realize, but I’m not religious, so that whole made up Christian story about the manger and the baby doesn’t mean squat to me. And the Santa thing, well, I’ve always managed to come up somewhat short of warranting an actual Scrooge classification but I must admit I’ve never been fully onboard with the endless strings of lights and rampant consumerism and the unnecessary killing of trees that are meticulously decorated and honored with center stage in our homes only to end up unceremoniously tossed out on the sidewalk along with the garbage bags full of shredded wrapping paper and empty boxes after the pagan festivities are complete. I guess that unless and until I progress to something even remotely resembling a full recovery from this injury – which at this point does not appear to be an overly promising eventuality – Christmas for me will always be the day that I lost part of myself. The part of me that ran instead of walked and hiked every trail in Yosemite and played soccer with the neighborhood kids. The part of me that sprinted up stairs and scattered back down only barely arresting my descent with each step. The part of me that lived without constant reminders of my knee, and the physical limitations that now come with it.

At this point my ability to suppress the underlying feelings of resentment and negativity whenever I hear a random Christmas song on the radio is made possible only by the voices of my kids as they sing along, shamelessly making up as they go along any lyrics they’ve not yet memorized.

Am I bitter? You bet I am. Bordering on violently depressed some days. I don’t tell anyone of course because in this world where every minute of every day people are starving to death, or suffering with disease, or being injured and killed as a result of pointless, misguided wars, to suggest in such a world that the condition of my knee is at all significant is overwhelmingly myopic and short-sighted. And that’s not who I am. Or at least, it’s not who I want to be.

That said, the last month and a half of all-out effort and physical therapy has yielded minimal improvement, and I’m beginning to consider, really consider that I may very well be quickly closing in on as good as it gets. I know there are no guarantees with knee surgery. I know the numbers. Believe me, I’ve read the stats. I’ve watched professional athletes end careers with a single knee injury. I know that in rare cases the physical losses can be permanent. But it’s just that – rare. And dammit, that’s just not me. I’m never part of the extreme minority. I never exist at the thinning edges of the bell curve. And on this recovery in particular, I would have bet my world. There was just no way this wasn’t going to work.

But so far it’s not working. Sure, I’m better than I was six months ago, but for the first time since my first month post-surgery, I’m not measurably better than I was a month ago.

All I want for Christmas… I tell you at this point I would trade my two front teeth for a good right knee in a reindeer heartbeat.