When I was a kid, my parents would take me to visit various great aunts and uncles. We would sit on their front porches in rocking chairs for hours on a Sunday afternoon while they reminisced about old family stories.
They ranged in age anywhere from their early 70s to their early 90s, and invariably they would talk about how they knew a storm was coming because they could feel it in their bones. When I asked, I was told that it was because they had arthritis and their joints would complain with certain changes in the weather.
To me, it sounded like some form of magic, maybe even a superpower, but then it was common for the old people where I grew up to tell the weather according to the shape of the moon or the redness of the sky at night. So why wouldn’t they be able to divine with their own bones?
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Many of them had old injuries from their youth—some from World War I and some from World War II. And there were always stories to go along with the origins of those injuries.
My parents talked often to me about the need of these old folks to take care of themselves because now, at their age, they wouldn’t heal as fast or as well as they had in their youth. Any time that I got hurt physically, I was reminded that I was young and would heal quickly.
In some cases, I did. In some cases, I didn’t.
Somewhere along the way, I came under the impression that injuries were something to be associated with old age, and that somehow once you had healed in your youth, everything would be just fine. In spite of my great uncles’ quite literal war stories, I didn’t really think of their youthful injuries as problematic for them—unless, of course, they were shot in battle. And there was definitely some of that.
Years ago, when I was 33 years old, I injured my back trying to carry a bunch of file folders in an awkwardly narrow but shallow box up a catwalk and into my government office. Halfway to my office, my back went numb, and it was sheer hell for the next 27 months before I finally got the help I needed.
Spoiler alert: if you have a back injury that no one can see, you’re automatically suspect as some kind of freeloading fraudster looking for a payday. It doesn’t matter what kind of superstar you’ve been in the past—once you get hurt on the job, you become paperwork and a liability, and if you don’t have a champion, you may not have the physical stamina yourself to be your own champion. The same with family: it doesn’t matter how much you’ve done in the past if you’re now a burden.
About five years ago, I had my first bone density scan and, as far as color rating goes, it came back as a vibrant green. The best of the best. Even the technician was amazed at how high.
But then I had a different type of bone density scan courtesy of my biohacking. It was free, so I agreed. They scanned a different part of my spine, and it was deep red. Would you like to guess exactly where on my spine they scanned? Yep, exactly where my injury had been when my back went numb on that catwalk into the office.
That early injury, long since healed and my back rebuilt with months of gym therapy, still echoes after 30 years—even though it no longer gives me any discernible pain or weakness. Underneath it all, those old injuries are still there, still a point of weakness unseen except with medical scanning equipment.
But that’s just the physical. Like with anyone else, I still have those old emotional injuries from childhood—ones that aren’t outwardly seen and happened so long ago that nobody recognizes them anymore or even remembers them, except me.
But still there, forever making that tiny portion of my foundation weak in ways I would never know unless I scanned deeply and knew exactly the right spot to look.
A Southern witch returns home. Secrets won’t stay buried. A chance to confront and heal—or face the consequences.
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23 life-coaching tips to motivate you and give your life direction.
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