Life With A Werewolf

Ignoring My Limits

          I suppose I only have myself to blame for what happened. When you’re young, it’s easy to push yourself beyond your limits. If you’re in the military in any capacity, it’s a regular requirement. They want to see you pressed to your capabilities and beyond. How much more do you actually have when your body is at that point of one hundred percent, all-in? The only way to know is to go there regularly. When you’re down range somewhere, there may come a point that you have to dig deep inside yourself and pull out things you didn’t even know existed to accomplish the mission and get yourself and everyone home. How will you know how to get to that point if you don’t practice getting there?

          But as you get older, you begin to forget your age. It may be jumping to snag something off the top shelf, climbing behind the washer like you used to do when you were a kid to grab a sock, or just jogging down the street and back like you may have done in high school. You feel okay when things start out, your body feels fine and reports no problems: until you try it. Then it goes from no issues to broke in a blink, and you’re left on the ground clutching something that didn’t hurt while your brain screams at you “Dummy! Why did you try this?!”

          Last week I felt okay. My hip was just fine. I used to run four to six miles almost daily just for fun. It was a relaxing way to get out of the house that didn’t include finding a bottle of “forget-it” juice. And yes, I was getting a little bit annoyed watching Crash and Elouise out running off on their own and while I was cooped up in the house. Crash and Elouise are jogging partners. Crash will come out of the house, and start moving his considerable weight with her by his side, and they’ll go on long, slow runs just jawing and running. The kind of thing that I used to enjoy and now miss, terribly.

          So, I was determined to join Crash one day on a run. I wasn’t going to stick around for the whole run, after all, they go eighteen miles (damn mythicals and their supercharged biological systems), but I figured, a mile and a half would be just enough. When I brought the idea up to Crash his response was to laugh then say, “no.”

          “Come on! I won’t be a third wheel, I promise. I’m not going to interrupt you and your girlfriend,” I said. I tried giving Crash big pleading, puppy dog like eyes.

          He just rolled his. He was in his human form at that moment, shorts and a tang top, ready to hit the road on their morning run. “First, the answer is still no. Second, we’re not dating. Just friends.”

          “Sure,” I said with a wink.

          Crash looked to the ceiling with a ‘Lord, Grant me strength,’ look. “Answer is still no. Guys and girls can be just-friends, you know.”

          I patted his back, “sure they can buddy.” He grumbled then stepped out the door.

          The way it played out in my brain, they would make it to the stop sign, I’d catch up, we’d have a small conversation like I used to do, as I jogged about a half a mile, then turned around and went home. It wasn’t going to be that far. Besides, I felt good! I felt as though I could have made it the whole eighteen miles with them on that day.

          So, Crash stepped out the door to join Ellouise, I waited about five or ten seconds for them to get going, then opened the door as they neared the stop sign. They jogged their usual pace and I followed, making it much farther, Crash said later, than he ever figured I would have. It was about the second stop sign before my knee, hip, and back all started singing the exact same song: “STOP! IN THE NAME OF LOVE!” By the time I hit the ground, I had made it exactly a tenth of a mile.

          The ground rushed up as a cry escaped my mouth and stumbled. My leg was limp, with pins and needles running through the parts that wasn’t screaming in pain. Nothing in the leg was responding to my commands. It was like it was dead. “Come here,” Crash growled, then picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. “And shut up, you’re making a spectacle.”

          “Ow, bless your heart, you felt left out, didn’t ya,” Ellouise said.

          “I guess,” I said watching the asphalt move beneath Crash’s feet. “I just wanted to be normal for a morning.”

          Crash set me down on the step, and looked me in the eye, patting my shoulder. “But, you’re not,” he said with as much sincerity as he could. Then he and Ellouise headed back down the road continuing their jog.

          A few hours later, the leg throbbed, but less so. The hip throbs worse. The numbness and tingling shoot down my legs, both the good and the bad one, were worse. I probably won’t feel that good again for a number of weeks. What stung more than my leg, my hip or my back was to have Crash look me in the face and say that. I’m not normal.

          After a few minutes, I hobbled inside and just laid in my bed, staring at the Tuscan countryside mural on my wall, wishing that I was on those sandy beaches somewhere. Walking. Not paying any attention or having any care for anything. Not having to be in a world where I wasn’t normal.

          It took some time for him to return and pop his human head into my room. Sweat glistened off his brow, his hair was matted on his head. My mind flashed to a simpler time, when I was sprinting up the hill with another friend of mine in the service for fun, just racing to get to the top first. Friendly insults and names were thrown out at each other as the pavement pounded beneath my feet, the wind filled my lungs and I felt alive. Instead of like the half-baked zombie I feel like regularly.

          “You feeling okay,” Crash asked, bringing me back to reality. He only got a shrug in return.

          “You got to remember; you have a new normal now. That car accident changed everything about you. You can’t run for long periods like that. You can’t do a lot of the things you used to.”

          “I guess that’s what you meant by me not being normal?” I tried to hold back the bite of bitterness I felt when I said that. I wasn’t entirely successful.

          “Heh,” he chuckled nervously, then smirked, “I just meant you were never normal. I told you I’m a werewolf, remember? We met on that college campus and you kept hanging around me anyway. Well, till you dropped out, that is. Normal people don’t do that.”

          I smiled back, “I suppose that’s true. Normal people try to finish school.”

          “You’re still a good man, Jason. Normal is over-rated.”

          I stared back at the Tuscan countryside, gritting my teeth. My hip, my leg, my back they all throbbed at once in sequence as if to amplify the point. “You know,” I said, “it wasn’t even about trying to stay up with you and Ellouise. It wasn’t about being apart of your conversation. Life for me is a constant reminder that I’m different. That I used to be better than I am now. That I’m no longer whole. Sometimes, it’s just good to have a reminder of a time when I was better.”

          Crash grabbed my foot and shook it for a moment. “You were drunk all the time, too,” he said. I rolled my eyes and he just smirked. “It’s true. You were drunk so much and you ignored Sarah so many days.”

          “If this is you trying to make me feel better, you’re doing a horrible job,” I grumbled.

          “I’m just saying. I got an earful from her and you, then. You barely drink anymore. You help out so much more now instead of just running out the door with a ‘back later’ and disappearing. One time you were gone for almost three days. Even I was searching for you.”

          I nodded. “Friend made had home-made whiskey. It was A LOT stronger than he claimed. Was better that you didn’t find me.”

          He looked away, for a moment as silence filled the room. “I’m just saying,” he said, “You weren’t ‘better’ then. You could run farther, yes. But you weren’t better.”

          “I guess,” I said. “I just wish I could do normal things. It would help me keep some of my dignity.”

          Crash gave me a sad smile. “Trust me, you have far more dignity now than when you could have made that entire run with us.”

          That evening was supposed to be my turn to cook. Crash took over, giving us some monstrosity of a concoction that he swore up
and down was Cajun. When I suggested we take some to Ellouise for testing though, he declined. Zack brought a plate into my room for me. Kris and Sean brought up my laundry, though I refused to let them help fold it. I’ll handle my own underwear, thank you.

          I had to use a cane for a total of one day. It’s still by my bed right now. A reminder that I’m not as young as I used to be. In your head you’re eternally eighteen years old. Capable of anything. But the reality is, you’re not. Your body has aged, it has a new set of limitations that even in those times that you feel the best you have to listen to. Otherwise, you’re just going to pay for it later.

          I suppose it’s not undignified to know your new limitations, to not press them in order to push some imaginary envelope. You can’t work out your way through an injury like mine. You can’t clean living your way back to being eighteen. This is what they truly mean when they say you can’t go home again.

          But it doesn’t stop the longing. The part of your soul that wishes you could make that jump you used to. To make that jog, to play basketball with your friends till dark. To reach for that intangible thing that was so easy to hold on to. It’s hard to say goodbye to who you were.