not so much that misery loves company, but more that misery prefers to not be alone

I feel like the phrase ‘misery loves company’ implies that miserable people want to make other people miserable too, that they want to inflict their misery on others. I think that’s largely true.

But sometimes I hear about someone else’s misfortune and while I’m not happy about it, I do derive a certain amount of solace from it.

Case in point: the other night at band practice, my right hand was doing a weird thing it does sometimes where, after playing intensely for a while, I lose control of the finer motor skills in my wrist and hand. Like, normally I hold drumsticks like this:

But when my hand does its weird thing, I just can’t hold the stick like that, and the stick starts sliding and rolling around my hand unless I resort to holding it like this:

And you really can’t play drums very well holding your sticks like clubs.

I don’t know what’s going on but I suspect it’s carpal tunnel syndrome because way back when, a drummer in a previous band of mine had a similar complaint and CTS was the cause. Who knows though.

Anyway, after our last band practice when my club hand symptoms were really acting up, I asked Paul (a long-time drummer) if he had ever experienced anything like that. He said no, and I felt alone. Then he said that he had been having some other weird drumming issues since hurting his neck and back quite a few months ago, but more of a pinched nerve-type pain at certain times. And I noticed when he said that, I felt better. Not because I’m happy that Paul is getting old and fucked too, but because I don’t want to be alone in getting old and fucked. It’s a safety in numbers thing. It made me feel like we were in the same boat, facing similar things, that we could relate to each other on this stuff.

I’ve thought about this a few times over the years, basically since I started having typical aging issues. I used to roll my eyes a bit at old fuckers going on to each other about their ailments, but now I think I get it. I think they’re also looking for camaraderie in their fucked-ness, just like I am. The poor geezers. I’ll try not to roll my eyes at them and their moaning anymore.