Knee worries.

My knee is injured again. The same one with the lateral mensicural tear that I had operation to fix two years ago. Same pain shooting through the joint, same swelling, same tightness. The operation was to shave off the bits of frayed meniscus, and quite a bit was shaved that i have little left linking the lateral horn to the medial horn, if it tears, then I am at great risk of accelerated arthritis.

This injury could not have come a worse time. I'm stronger than ever, I feel fitter than ever and I'm improving so much. There is a match on the 3rd, and the season would have started when I touch down in Dublin later that month. I don't know how I got it because i have been pain free for the last two years since the op. I think it is a combination of very quick weight gain, getting much fitter and using metal studs on astroturf. I hate astroturf, but then again, who doesn't?

I hate the feeling of complete hopelessness as I watch my dreams of actually getting real good at my favourite sport while I'm away. It doesn't help that the country is crazy over it and that season will just be starting since it's a winter sport. The six years that I'll be in Dublin will the prime of sporting tour if anything, since once thirty hits, everything slows down. Sure, I'd love to be like Elvis, my fifty, that's right FIFTY, year old teammate who still plays after two heart bypasses. Elvis is actually japanese, but wears his sideburns like his famous namesake, hence the nickname. Damn, those Japs are hardy. Also, once housemanship and the working life start, I'll never be able to commit the same amount of time too it.

Furthermore, through all the waves of despondency that wash over the shores of mind as I question the future of my knee, I can't help wondering why me? Why does God have to pick me to have the torn meniscus. Why can't I have a torn ACL? I could live with that, in fact, I think it's a far better injury to have than a torn meniscus. I don't know. But still, why me? I hate asking that sort of question, as if I'm challenging his infinitely greater wisdom.

Honestly, I don't know what I'll do without it. It's a huge part of my life, my identity. Nothing gives me the same rush as being on the field. Perhaps, all my hobbies are just psycho-analytical proof of some self-destructive behaviour since I can't see any bright future ahead. Maybe I just wish someone would save me from all these destructive addictions. Maybe I'm just being melodramatic. I don't know. In the immortal words of Hamlet,

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

I just want to run and hit people. ):