We’re Strangers With Memories…Now

Jeff Beck is singing Telephone Line and I am thinking about a brief email exchange where someone asked me what is new in my world.

I told shared a few words about my kids, talked about the career of the younger Mr. Wilner and my daughter who is a couple weeks short of graduating college with a B.S. In Neuroscience.

Didn’t say a word about tearing my bicep tendon or almost dying last October in a freak accident. There was a time when they would have heard everything or at least known something because I have written about it all.

But they don’t know anything or if they do they didn’t say anything and I chose not to volunteer it.

Didn’t see a purpose or reason because we’re strangers with memories…now.

You can’t tell that I have two IVs going in that photo nor that I am thinking about pulling both of them out and walking out of the hospital.

Took it not long after they said my blood work had come back showing some sort of growth and that it could be sepsis or something else. That was day three and I had begun to feel my strength return.

It wasn’t an easy time, I have vivid memories of when two guys lifted me off of a bed to place me on the CT scan to see if I was still bleeding.

People have asked if I was scared and the answer is no, I was angry. When they lifted me off of the bed and stuck me on the machine I was wrapped in nothing more than a blanket.

I was too tired to move myself but I don’t think they would have let me try. That was around 4 AM or so.

By around noon I was in my own room and I insisted on walking myself to the bathroom. I refused to let anyone go in with me but it took all I had to keep standing and to wash my hands.

If they hadn’t had metal handrails there was no way I wouldn’t have collapsed. So I asked them to bring a chair in and then let them wheel me back to my bed.

I think I got my second unit of blood shortly thereafter, I know the first was dispensed in the E.R.

By day three I had no doubt in my legs or ability to get around without help and I had gotten quite tired of being poked and prodded. Hence a picture of a guy who was about done.

I think all of that is connected to why when I was allowed to resume working out I hit it with a vengeance.

Certainly part of why I drove myself so hard the day I shredded that distal tendon. I never expected my body to betray me that way.

It has been hard being patient. It has been a real challenge not to start trying to work out with my left arm but I have forced myself to do it.

One more month and I’ll start working on regaining what I have lost and building it back.

We’re Strangers With Memories…Now

One of the guys asked me where that line came from and I said I wasn’t sure. Made it in reference to a few people who I no longer speak with.

He asked me if it was my choice or theirs and I said I wasn’t sure how to answer and that it didn’t matter.

I used to say if you cut ties with me you better be certain because I have a grip like a gorilla and if you convince me to let go I don’t ever let you come back.

Time taught me there are a few exceptions to the rule so I modified it which is why I used the ellipsis followed by now.

I’ve come to believe that sometimes things happen and that sometimes you allow for circumstances that you might not have permitted at a different time.

It doesn’t mean you’ll be allowed to come back, depends on what version of Hurt you get. Or maybe it is more accurate to say as Johnny does I remember everything.

But when you defeat the Angel of Death in single combat you come back a different person.

That hero’s journey I started in September of ’24 has been pretty damn good and I attribute some of that to why that old Malach HaMavet found himself in one hell of a fight.

Been through some very challenging and very painful moments but fought my way through and most of the time walk around with a smile.

Got my head screwed on tight and keep knocking down the walls and obstacles I encounter.

So the arm and some of the crap that has come along with it has been irritating. Definitely not something I want to repeat, but fear won’t stop me from pushing myself.

Comfort zones can be great benisons but they can also be the things that keep you from becoming who you are meant to be.

I am not done yet, not even close.

Give it time, there is much more to come.