[Trigger warnings: physical injury; loss]
I’m in pieces. Apparently, the silly injury I got on my left thumb two & a half weeks ago is a torn UCL requiring surgery. This would entail six weeks of no “weight-bearing activities” with my left thumb/hand after surgery and effectively three months of no climbing (& no motorcycle riding). Which means my whole summer is ruined.
I know that one can climb outdoors in Colorado almost all year round — which is one of the main reasons I moved out here. But in the summer days are much longer, allowing us to climb outdoors even several times during the week, presenting wonderful opportunities for fun, healthy outdoor activities and bonding that I enjoy and need.
I also realize that even if this summer is screwed for me, there will be plenty more summers and seasons of good weather here. But I feel old. I feel like every day or week or month that I lose now — be it of inactivity because of an injury or a delay in my gender-affirming care — is a huge tragedy because I got to really be myself so f***** late in life. I feel like I only have a couple more seasons, less than a handful of years left to be fit and athletic and handsome. So every day I miss, every chance I lose now, feels like a huge, unsurmountable loss to me.
I don’t simply feel that “I won’t be young forever”. I feel that I’m already at the end of my life so every minute I miss is an unbearable waste or lost opportunity for me.
And then there’s the bonding. Climbing with my buddies is one of the most important things for me — probably one of the single two most important things in my life now. It’s my “bro time”. It’s the time I have to spend and bond with my (cis-male) friends. It’s the time for that specific type of intimacy that comes within male bonding with those types of activities, with that kind of time spent together. And to me it means the world. It’s been one of the two or three most important things I’ve had in these past two years, one of the two or three things that have actually enabled me to become my true self wholly. My time climbing with my (cis-male) buddies is bonding, affirming, validating. It provides me with a sense of self, of identity, and a type of intimacy that are most dear to me and super important for me. I don’t know how I’ll be able to build/pursue other types of healthy intimacy in romantic and/or sexual relationships if I don’t have this baseline bonding and validation with my climbing buddies. My broad sense of polyamory includes close platonic relationships and covers different types of intimacy connected to different needs & affections: so with one important type of intimacy being forfeited, I’m afraid I won’t be able to approach the romantic and/or sexual relationships that I’m trying to pursue in a healthy way because I’ll be needier. And even more so because one of my closest platonic queer friends who is chosen family to me will be away visiting a romantic partner of theirs for several weeks in June & July — which also means I won’t be able to go to Pride events with them as I did last year, adding another loss & gap in my summer which might be a hard blow on my base of relational stability.
And then there’s my identity, my shattered identity, if I cannot climb or ride my motorcycle. A great part of my identity is connected to, and dependent on, being hyperactive, wild, adventurous, brave, and strong. And specifically having a very strong and muscular upper-body. Three months without climbing, and at least 3-4 weeks of no swimming or weight-lifting either because of the post-surgery splint, will affect my upper body strength tremendously. I remember how devastated I was when I lost strength in 2020 during my long post-COVID recovery: I almost completely lost my sense of self and it caused depression. I’m afraid of that happening again. And now I’m older, I’m old: recovery will get harder and harder every time.
Just now that I was beginning to feel like I had been given my real self, at last, a chance to finally be my whole true self — boyish and masculine and strong and wild — I feel like it’s been taken away from me and it’s lost to me again. I feel like I’ve been robbed of the chance to me myself, once again in life — and this time I’m not a teenager, I’m not in my twenties, this time was the last chance for me to enjoy my “golden years”.
I feel like I’ve been robbed, forever, of my golden years.
The Little Prince and the Fox 