Shinn the Writer

Recap 2024

 

So here I am, coming into January of 2025. And quite a year it has been. In January I slipped and fell in my kitchen after coming in from a wet outside patio. It seemed like a mere bruise that would heal in no time, until it didn’t. With aging comes the line to a song I wrote for a friend’s birthday: “Injuries that once were no big deal, now take at least a month to heal.” This took twice-weekly visits to physical therapy and more like two months, but indeed the healing took place and I’m fine now. 

 

I tried to ward off osteoporosis early this year by doing push-ups like I was taught in grade school and actually got pretty good at when I did tae kwon do in my late forties. But it turned out that, now in my seventies, this most basic of fitness exercises didn’t go over very well with my shoulders. About the time I thought I was ready to say goodbye to physical therapy, I found myself merely changing the body part they worked on. As Mick Jagger so aptly wrote, “What a drag it is getting old.” But I’m happy to report that this too has healed, though pushups are no longer on the menu.

 

Without significant fanfare, I seem to have retired from golf. A couple of times I thought I’d be getting back into it, but it just never happened. Tilden Park never once saw me in 2024, not even on the driving range. Perhaps 2025. It turns out that about the only exercise I seem to be able to do has been walking. I was proud of doing my two miles a day through the hilly terrain of Kensington, until I remeasured it finding out that my route is only 1.8 miles. No big deal.

 

But though walking was fine, one day I tried jogging a piece of it and found that I couldn’t really jog at all. I panicked. But I found that I really had just let myself get out of practice. All I needed to do was to slowly start to build up that bit of muscle memory and I was soon able to jog substantial pieces of my walk. It’s gotten cold lately so I haven’t done this for a couple of months, but hopefully in 2025 I’ll be doing more of my short jogs mixed in with my walks.

 

October saw me do something that I honestly had to wonder how my body would react. I drove to Michigan and back. It turned out that my body held up quite well. No aches and pains showed themselves and I seemed to thrive in the effort. My guess is that next time I want to go that far from home, I’ll fly then rent a car. I missed seeing all the people I should have seen, but nothing was missed or had to be cut back due to back issues arising from the drive.​