[CaptainCrunch]

Ok, I've thought about this long and hard and I didn't think it belonged in the gear grinder thread, and certainly not in the what makes me happy thread.

Once in a while CP acts as this great confessional platform. Because of anonymous nature of most of us, and the chances that we'll never ever meet people in person, you have the ability to get things off your chest, or open up a bit and talk or work things through and get great advice, advice that maybe isn't so great, and some irreverent comments that remind you that things aren't so bad or your overly focused on the negatives of a situation.

So what's the biggest fear in the Captain's life, whats the boogey man under the bed or in the closet waiting to leap out and devour me.

The whole slowing down thing, and while there's a physical aspect of it. I'm certainly not the athlete that I used to be, I'm rocked with the usual physical pains that you get as you approach the mid point of your life. You know the ones? When you wake up in the morning and feel it in your knees and in your back, and in your shoulders and generally in your muscles. You realize it when you go out and play football or hockey or basket ball that your not near as fast as you used to be, and that nephew burns around you on a post pattern and it doesn't matter anymore because your experience doesn't equal results anymore.

I'm really not afraid of that, I dread it, but I'm not afraid of it.

I'm terrified of the mental aspect of life.

Just to give some background I played a lot of sports growing up, and did a lot of what you would call stupid things.

During my time leading up to probably 35 I had 8 documented concussions with a few serious ones, on top of that I probably had a few other knock the dust off moments that were probably concussions that I never got looked at because they didn't feel like the concussions that sent me to the doctor or the emergency room.

About a year ago I began to notice things that scared me. I'm starting to forget words, and they aren't just words that are out there, they are common words. I spent minutes trying to remember the word integrity for example in a conversation. You know when you sit there and start a sentence and you stop and your thinking "What's the word I'm looking for"

I'm forgetful now, things that I used to remember to do, I forget to do now and these are common activities. My trips to the grocery store for example where I knew exactly what I needed, are now an adventure of getting to the cashier and checking out and getting home and realizing that I've forgotten a bunch of what I needed to get.

Reading used to be a joy for me, I'd read 5 or 6 books in a month. Now a single book takes me a month, and I get to a point where it gets frustrating because I'll forget about key characters and key moments in the book I'm reading.

I used to be great at remember history, I love history I could pull events and dates easily and be able to link things in a coherent discussion. Now I have to re-research everything.

And coherent conversations I'm starting to really have trouble keeping up with conversations.

All this is starting to make me a frustrated and sometimes difficult person to get along with.

Its terrifying in a lot of ways because its almost like I can feel things physically sliding away, like things that I could grab easily are now sitting on a top shelf just beyond my reach. Its almost at times like I'm foggy, I don't know how to describe it, but I am.

I went to see a doctor and got referrals to specialists generally went through a bunch of tests from mental acuity tests, and memory recall tests, to a scan of my noggin.

Basically what came back is that there is absolutely damage to areas of my brain from the concussions and in combination with things that happen when you age.

Basically the message is, what's done is done live with it.

I guess I'm having lots of problems right now with feeling like the slowest guy in the room, and I have this innate feeling of impending doom when I'm in a room with some of my uncles for example who have slowed completely down. Or even my dad who really struggles with reading and remember things and the simplest things like his judgement when he's driving.

I'm not hear to make this scathing indictment of youth sports like hockey or football or even slow pitch. I'm not going to blame that cute little girl that I was showing off too when I was 9 or 10 or whatever that gave me my first major concussion.

But yeah, I'm now dealing with this overwhelming feeling of dread, that if I'm having these struggles now what's it going to be like in 5 years or 10 years.

That's what makes me afraid.