I’m no stranger to moving chairs from point A to point B. My first job involved moving chairs. I still move chairs. Pick them up, put them down, stack them back up. For me, moving chairs is inevitable.

Two weeks ago, while moving chairs, I felt a twinge in my elbow. Using one arm, I was moving two chairs in order to pick them up. There was a table in between me and the stack of chairs. Consequently, my arm was fully extended. Immediately before grabbing them with my other hand, I felt the sharp pain on the top of my elbow. The elbow of my right arm.

Which just so happens to be my casting arm.

That day my elbow was generally sore. The next day it hurt when I moved it. It was difficult to exercise or even pick up light objects. I decided to take it easy. Later that week, even with rest, it still hurt. I talked to my friend, who happens to be a physician’s assistant. I explained my symptoms. He pinched a spot on my elbow. He knew just where to touch, because it hurt. “Tennis elbow,” he said, “just give it time.”

But it had me worried.

Some of the worry was directly tied to fly fishing. Hurting my casting arm in December is one thing. Hurting it in April? Right before the season? That won’t do. Plus, I’m getting more and more into saltwater fly fishing. Throwing sinking lines on eight- and nine-weights takes its toll on one’s arm. Moreover, the surging tugs of a striper would generate the exact stresses that caused the most pain.

I can cast trout weights left handed pretty well. My self-confidence isn’t high enough to add heavy dumbbell eyes to the equation.

All of that anxiety seems to have been unnecessary.  Two weeks later, and I’m feeling better. I’m able to throw for my son’s coach-pitch little league games. I can sleep with my elbow bent. There is still some discomfort, but the inflammation and pain is almost gone. I should be in tip-top double haul shape by the time the fish make it around the cape and up to where I fish.

Still, my chair-moving injury was a reminder. I’m not as young as I used to be. Even with a pretty rigorous exercise routine, the cumulative effects of living are unavoidable. So too are the freak accidents which are truly not respecters of persons. I might need to stretch. I might need to mix an Ibuprofen in now and then. I might need to not make as many cavalier decisions as I used to.

Most of all, I need to mingle all of that with an appreciation of what I can do. Even in this moment: I can type without any pain in my hands. I can trot up and down my stairs without complaint. I can rock my baby or wrestle with my big boys. All of those things, big or little, are truly blessings worth counting. In the grand scheme of things, starting a fishing season a little late is hardly a sacrifice.

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?”

Matthew 6:25-26