My Knees, My Weakness

I tested out my knee at the gym today. The plan was to run for a mile, but I wound up running four. It wasn't that my knee felt great. Quite the opposite. It wasn't painful, just a nagging, dull sensation, but I was still running with a limp. It felt like my left leg was longer than my right, so that I was pounding down on the right leg. After a while I was able to run a little more normally. The tenderness never went away, but it didn't bother me enough that I felt like I needed to stop, but I do have a problem saying "when," so I may have pushed through it. Apart from the knee issues, the run went well. I was a little winded even with the 10 min/mile pace but that's to be expected after two and a half weeks of no running. So, as it stands, I can still sense some lingering weakness in my knee, especially when I bend it, but I'm not walking with a limp. I won't run tomorrow, but I do have a run date with FJ on Friday.

With my knee problems and other things weighing on my mind, I've began to feel old. It took a few months but gradually the fact that I'm 30 has sunk in. I've become more self-conscious about situations and places I find myself in and wonder whether I look ridiculous. It often happens when I walk into a teen-centric place like Hollister, which also has the added stigma of being the clothing store for a majority of gays. Not only do I have to fret over being a thirty year old picking out cargo shorts in a dimly lit, peculiar-smelling store manned by shaggy haired high schoolers born when I was in high school, but I also have to wrestle with the question of whether I want to be that kind of gay man. Inevitably I walk out empty-handed.

The question of career and settling down has been gnawing at me lately, too, adding to the queasiness as to age. 30 may be the new 20 but it is still 30. The numbers don't lie. Call me crazy but I look forward to the day when I take stock and say with pride, "I'm 35 and I feel 35."