Good as new?

I don't know exactly when it happened.

Was it a by-product of being married? The annual addition of a birthday? The moment I realized that my best days were probably behind me?

I don't know what led me to this place. I do know that, somewhere along the way, I stopped seeing myself as fixable. I decided that the aches and pains, the ways in which my body simply didn't behave, were just part of getting older. So my knee hurts. So the little sucker is prone to injury. What do you expect, at almost 44 years of age?

Turns out, I can expect more.

See, I've been really active over the last month or so. Keeping up the gym regimen while participating in relays, serving beers and helping friends move. All the while babying my knee, trying to keep from hurting it, and yet causing some very real pain. It wasn't getting any better, so I went to the doctor.

Who assures me that, with physical therapy, I can be good as new.

Really? After I'd given up and pretty much resigned myself to growing old next week, I learn that it doesn't have to be this way? Evidently. And that's an important revelation: We're never really done. We can never give up. Good enough can never be good enough.

So I have my first appointment next Wednesday at 4 pm. It will probably make me want to cry like a girl. Which is fortunate, because I am. But I'm going to do it, and I'm going to be good as new.