Oh my achy body! Thank goodness for Icy Hot.

You see, I play in a co-ed recreational volleyball league on Wednesday nights through our local recreation commission. It’s a fun league, and I love the folks I get to play with. It’s the one time that my wife and I get to compete in anything together, and we have a few minutes to catch up on our day on the way over and the way home (on the days when we can rearrange our hectic schedules so that we’re not driving two places prior to the games).

It’s a way for me to relight the competitive fire in my life and take out some frustrations. I get to play a game that I love, with people that are amazing, and get some exercise at the same time. It sounds like a win-win situation for me. Playing in a fun league (as opposed to a really competitive league) allows me to be one of the players in the upper half of the skill set, so I don’t feel totally overwhelmed either. That’s good for my ego.

What’s not so good for my ego, nor my body is the fact that I don’t really seem to understand that what I could do at 25, 30, or 35 is long, long ago. This 50 year-old body (I’m not 51 for another 13 days do I’m still checking the box that ends at 50) just doesn’t work the way it used to. More importantly, it doesn’t heal the way it used to. It takes a bit longer. As long as we agree to define a bit as more than a week.

That’s what causes a problem in a league where you play weekly. Last weeks dings, scrapes, and ouchies haven’t quite resolved by the next time I step on the court. No manner of protective apparel (short of full body bubble wrapping) is enough to protect me from myself. And if I was wrapped from head-to-toe in bubble wrap we wouldn’t get the game played because I’d be rolling around on the floor popping the bubble wrap and laughing uncontrollably. What is it about bubble wrap?

Anyway, back to my point…injuries and dings stay with me longer than I would like. More importantly, I just can’t seem to stop my mind from thinking and acting like my body can do more than it can currently handle.

Last night is a great example. We actually hadn’t played in two weeks (we got Thanksgiving week off), so I should have been more healed than I was. The current injury is an achy right shoulder. It’s muscle stuff, so it’s nothing serious (nothing is actually serious anymore, just really, really irritating). But driving two 10-hour round trips didn’t help either. Having to keep my hands on the steering wheel (that darned 10-and-2 thing I still do) kept my arm elevated and the muscles firing. And hurting.

So I stepped on the court yesterday to warm up and knew that I was going to have trouble serving. It might be a non-competitive, recreational league…but I’ll be darned if I’m going to serve underhand. I learned how to serve overhand for a reason…and at my height it’s a real advantage.

Through the course of the game I was flopping around as usual. Sliding on the floor. Skinning shins (the kneepads and socks only cover so much). Scraping elbows. And diving on my shoulder.

Then my first opportunity to serve arrived. I did OK, somewhat to my surprise. I served five points…mostly because the other team had trouble returning the ball and my team receives and volleys really well.

We rotated through our lineup and I had a couple more serves to end that game. Pretty much the same in the second game. I had two rounds of serving and had about eight or nine serves. The shoulder was hurting, but nothing that would end my night.

Game three was a bit more difficult. For whatever reason, we let the other team into the game. We had blown them out in the first two games, and I think we kind of let our foot off the gas. The other players aren’t old enough to use the “I got tired excuse”. I’m too proud to admit that, so we’re going to say it was mental and not physical.

Anyway, my serves were a bit more important in that game. We got six points on my first round of serving and managed to claw our way back into the game. On my seventh serve my arm was just dead. I could barely lift it.

The game went back and forth and then I was up to serve again. I got the first serve over. On the next serve I sort of windmilled my arm around and the ball scooted barely over the net. For the next four serves I pretty much just swung my arm from hip in a large circle and hoped I would hit the ball. Fortunately, the other team couldn’t receive my serves at all and we ended the game on the series.

Driving home my arm was pretty much useless. Again, nothing serious…it just ached. Oh, and it was shaking a little bit. You know, that muscle fatigue where your arm is trying to tell the rest of your body to let it go curl up in a corner. Fortunately I was born left-handed but forced into the right-handed mode by my Mom, so I can use either hand well. Good thing to as the right arm was not cooperating.

This morning when I got up I knew that it was going to be a rough day. I grabbed the icy hot, and right out of the shower I globbed a bunch onto my shoulder. The distinctive smell of icy hot brings back lots of memories. During high school soccer seasons our twins used it so much that the house was a weird mixture of the smells of Icy Hot and Chlorine (our oldest was a competitive swimmer). Everything we owned smelled like Icy Hot.

So here I am today, having memories brought back to me because of Icy Hot and being reminded that I’m getting older every time I try to move my mouse. Or blow my nose. Or lift my coffee cup.

It’s funny how a smell or a sound can bring back a memory. Or rather a whole raft of memories that can just get your mind going.

So my task for you today…go smell something that gets your mental juices flowing. Cookies? Bread? Spaghetti sauce? A flower? Bleach? Maybe a favorite candle.

Just smell something and bring back some great memories!