Aaron's Status

February 7, 2025

9:20 am

It sure has been a week, or two, so here is an unstructured emotional dump for my own therapeutic purposes. Be forewarned.

I think of this little blog as basically the resurrection of LiveJournal. Boy did I ever love LiveJournal when I was an angsty teen with an irreverent and sometimes offensive sense of humor and an abiding love of florid prose. I’m still irreverent but I’d like to believe I’m less offensive and that my prose is at least more measured.

Reflecting on life and all of its little uniquely personal turns straight into some nook of the internet is a bit of a weird habit, but one that is wholly of my generation. My parents and their parents kept paper journals or diaries (my grandfather kept a daily journal for something like fifty years!) and the kids nowadays scream into the TikTok algorithm.

I’ve always preferred writing, though. It’s more considered, and doing it is a quiet, solitary act. Making a video is just so… Well, not that.

•••

To the point, I’ve been continuing to suffer with the pinching in my lower back, which is what is called sacroiliitis, a condition with at least two more “I"s than necessary. This has been going on for so long now (six months? Seven?) that it’s hard to imagine what recovery would be like. Will there be a moment when I feel “recovered?” Or will I “be on the road to recovery” for the rest of my life?

I know it’s unfair to expect such a change to happen in less than a year. I also know it’s unfair to want it to flip like a switch. These things are all ebbs and flows and ups and downs and what is important is the trend. The trend, I think, is good? Probably?

At the very least, I’m definitely seeing increased flexibility in a couple of key areas. Sure, not as much as I want, but it’s there. My ability to get down into a deep “child’s pose” is massively improved. I think my hip flexibility has improved faster and that’s awesome.

But it’s the hamstrings that I think really do me in. I fully believe that my hamstring flexibility is one of the key drivers of my condition because that is what limits my pelvic tilt and causes me to load that sacroilliac joint improperly. At least, that’s the prevailing theory and one that I can mechanically understand.

Maybe I’m not doing a good enough job maintaining good posture. No, I take that back, I know I’m not doing a good enough job maintaining good posture.

Anyway, the point is, I’ll have moments here or there where it’s like, “oh dang it’s fixed” and then a couple hours later it’s pinching again just doing normal dumb stuff like loading the dishwasher or putting on my pants. It’s not debilitating or anything, it hasn’t been as bad as last July since then, so I’m not depressed about it, but it’s still keeping me from climbing, or climbing hard.

This is the real crux of it. My desire to keep up my climbing growth and my desire to close the gap between my ability and that of my peers. It’s this feeling of being held back artificially by something I can’t control. It’s a new sensation for me; generally I’m held back by my own decision not to make a commitment, or my own laziness, and I can recognize and live with that. It was a choice and I made it, eyes open.

But here, it’s not in my control. I just keep doing physical therapy exercises every day, and I keep laying on the heating pad and the ice pack, and I keep eating a good diet, and really what more can I do? It’s tough because climbing has become my main activity and main social event, plus it’s become a real centerpiece of our family.

I think what is under there is some frustration about feeling cut out of that part of it, because I’ll have to hang back from our scheduled sessions to rest. But what choice do I have? Rest is more than half of training anyway. I sure am getting good at resting.

•••

But hey, it’s really not that bad. Flexibility continues to improve, the pain is minor and frustrating but doesn’t prevent me from doing the things I need to do on a day-to-day basis. I wish I could have more of a perspective on expectations or timelines but I also know that that’s not really possible. You just have to keep going.

Well that feels like enough of a self-pitying rant for any Friday!

Keep on keeping on, y’all.