By a guy who now pulls a hamstring putting on socks

There comes a point in life when you realize you are no longer a rugged adventurer. You are, instead, an aging household appliance with questionable wiring and a strange noise nobody can locate.

For me, this realization arrived while getting out of bed.

Not falling out of bed. Not leaping heroically from it. Simply… standing up. One moment I was horizontal, the next I sounded like somebody crushing a shopping cart in a garbage compactor.

And lately, I’ve been thinking about mortality.

Not in a dramatic, poetry-under-the-rain sort of way. More because my body has started reacting to ordinary activities as though I’m attempting Arctic exploration.

As a kid, none of this existed.

I climbed every tree I could find around the neighborhood or the nearest park. Not carefully either. I climbed them with the confidence of a man who had absolutely no understanding whatsoever of gravity, emergency rooms, or lifelong spinal consequences.

And mountain biking? Goodness.

Back then, if somebody pointed at a steep hill and said, “That looks dangerous,” my immediate thought was:
“Excellent. Let’s go faster.”

Steep mountains. Steep dirt trails. Steep anything really. If there was even a moderate chance of bodily harm, I was interested. I’d come barreling downhill on a bike held together mostly by rust and optimism, grinning like an escaped lunatic. At no point did I think: “This might have consequences later in life.”

Now I can throw my back out reaching for toast.

That’s not an exaggeration either. I once sneezed while bending slightly sideways and spent the next two days walking like an elderly pirate.

These days I can’t even get out of bed without my back aching.

And before anybody says it — no, it’s not the mattress. I already changed it. Twice. Bought one of those expensive orthopedic mattresses supposedly engineered by Swedish scientists working deep underground beside a volcano.

Didn’t help. All it’s managed to do is make me poor and uncomfortable at the same time.

The pillow got replaced too. Cooling gel. Memory foam. Ergonomic support. It sounds less like bedding and more like equipment from a NASCAR pit garage.

Still wake up feeling like somebody folded me into an overhead compartment.

And weather? Weather has become personal.

Years ago I could stand outside in freezing rain wearing a thin hoodie and stubbornness. Today, if humidity rises by two percent somewhere over Nebraska, my sinuses react like they’ve received a bomb threat.

First comes the pressure.

Then the headache.

Then the migraine arrives carrying luggage and plans to stay awhile.

One of my neighbors told me recently,
“You’re too young for all this.”

I explained that age has very little to do with it. Mileage is the real issue.

Some people are classic low-mileage garage cars.

I, meanwhile, am my grandfather’s old 1945 Willys Jeep.

That thing rattled constantly, leaked mysterious fluids, shook violently at idle, and sounded like a cement mixer full of silverware. But somehow it kept going through sheer mechanical stubbornness.

No computers.

No sensors.

No warning lights screaming because a leaf got too close to the bumper.

Just noise, steel, and determination.

Modern cars beep at you because you’re emotionally near a parking curb. The Willys would simply throw you into a ditch and consider the matter resolved.

And honestly, I respect that.

Unfortunately, I now resemble that Jeep far more than I’d like.

Especially because I used to think health and safety rules were complete nonsense. In my mind, they existed purely because men in high-visibility jackets and neckties had decided fun should be illegal.

You know the sort.

Clipboard in hand.

Permanent expression of disappointment.

Standing beside something dangerous explaining why nobody should climb it, jump over it, or set fire to it.

At the time, I thought they were ridiculous.

Turns out they were absolutely correct.

Well, mostly. The necktie still remains one of humanity’s stranger decisions. A hi-vis vest with a necktie makes a guy look like he’s trying to direct traffic at a wedding.

Back when I worked around electrical systems for a power company, safety was far more… optimistic.

Bucket trucks weren’t common yet, so guys climbed utility poles wearing spike boots and a leather belt while surrounded by enough voltage to turn a squirrel into steam.

Nobody seemed concerned.

Just a guy called Gary halfway up a pole during terrible weather would just yell, “Looks fine from here!”

Which, historically speaking, are usually the last words before new regulations get written.

Then came railway work.

And this is where the body truly begins filing complaints.

Where every man carried a tool bag weighing roughly the same as a collapsed neutron star.

Thirty to forty pounds of tools slung over your shoulder while walking miles beside the track because, in Britain, unlike America, you don’t simply drive to the job. Oh no. You march there through mud, wind, darkness, snow, frozen dreams and existential despair.

If you forgot one tool, there was no magical rescue vehicle bringing it to you.

You walked back.

Another mile and a half walking beside the railway while your boss is already huffing like an angry walrus, the signalman (or dispatcher if in the US) is throwing his toys out of the pram, and somewhere behind you a train the size of a cathedral is approaching at 90 miles an hour.

Americans have it figured out, of course.

Drive the truck directly to the worksite.

All the tools neatly organized.

Cup holder.

Air conditioning.

But deep down, I’ll admit it: there was something oddly satisfying about surviving the miserable walks. It felt like actual work. Exhausting, ridiculous, back-destroying work, but still.

Now, of course, I go to the doctor.

And the doctor asks the same questions every single time.

“Appetite okay?”

“Yes.”

“Sleeping well?”

“No.”

“Any unexplained weight loss?”

“I wish.”

And somehow, regardless of your answers, the conclusion is always the same.

“Well… you need a colonoscopy.”

Amazing really.

You could walk in because of a paper cut and leave scheduled for a camera expedition into your lower intestine.

This past week I’ve been doing DIY work outside. Mending the wooden fence. Fixing the gate. Proper satisfying work too. Sawdust, screws, timber, the smell of fresh-cut wood — magnificent.

The problem is my body now responds to manual labour the way Victorian aristocrats responded to plague outbreaks.

Poorly.

I spend an hour fixing a fence post and then walk back into the house like a survivor of a maritime disaster.

Everything hurts.

Knees crackling.

Back groaning.

Hands refusing to unclench.

At one point I sneezed while carrying timber and briefly saw what I can only describe as the entrance to the afterlife.

And yet, strangely, I still love doing it.

Because somewhere underneath the aching joints, migraines, suspicious digestive consultations, and noises my body now makes getting out of chairs… there’s still that idiot young man flying downhill on a mountain bike thinking he’ll live forever.

He’s just moving a bit slower now.

And apparently needs better lumbar support.

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Just a small reminder that my book, Hidden Alignment, is officially out now in paperback and Kindle.

At this point I know I’m beginning to sound less like an author and more like a guy standing outside a gas station yelling about homemade beef jerky.

But writing a book apparently turns you into a full-time salesman with the emotional stability of a Labrador retriever.

So yes… this is another shameless advertisement.

Or, more accurately, gentle literary begging.

There’s a QR code and a link below.

Please scan it.

Please click it.

Please buy the book before I’m forced to stand outside Walmart wearing a sandwich board that says:
“FORMER RAILROAD GUY NEEDS READER VALIDATION.”

Thank you kindly.

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Link: https://a.co/d/0enjFI6f