a pain in the butt
For a while now, I'll occasionally get this sharp pain in my left butt cheek (that's the anatomically precise identifier) that I think is coming from a tendon or ligament in my hip. It hurts more when I take a step, and I can feel something snapping near my hip. This pain comes and goes - I can't really remember when it started. It probably became noticeable after my short-lived badminton stint, but as far as I'm aware, I didn't ever actually injure that hip. Each time it revisits, it reminds me of how much I've aged so far. I used to think of getting older like falling off of a cliff. One day you wake up at [insert age] and realize that your joints hurt and your eyes are blurry and you should basically start estate planning now. To nobody's surprise other than mine, aging is feeling much more like a slow but definite decline. My hypothesis is that it's like sitting in a descending plane - you can feel the altitude dropping steadily, but the descent is marked by random bouts of turbulence that threaten to drop you out of the sky. The turbulence turns people religious with their sudden awareness of mortality, but usually, the steady decline is what actually brings you to the end of the flight. Random hip pain? Steady decline. Events that require taking FMLA? Turbulence.
PS - the actual craziest flight I've been on was only a couple months ago when I flew back from Korea and the plane was shaking so much that water started dripping from the ceiling onto my friend and we both contemplated buying wifi to bid everyone farewell.