A random data point to explain my obsession with music

This is a reblog of something I posted several years ago. A friend suggested that I put it here as a more accessible record of my experience:

In late 2001, my hands broke. Not in the dynamic snapping of bones way but in the dull throbbing pain every time I tried to do anything music or computer related. Using a computer mouse was an excrutiating exercise in masochism. Playing a single scale on a piano was agony. Alas, even playing guitar was painful.

It was, as my specialist called it, a Repetitive Strain Injury in both hands. Basically that meant that he didn't know exactly what it was but that if I wanted to heal, I had to stop doing a lot of things. I had to quit piano. I had to seriously cut back on computer time. I had to (and this was the hardest one for me...) quit playing guitar.

I was a wreck. I was confronted by the very real possibility that I would never be able to play guitar again.

I soldiered on as best I could for a few months but I couldn't take it. In desperation, I went out and spent $400 I didn't have on a left handed guitar and tried it out. Because it used a set of muscles and tendons that I hadn't used and abused into oblivion already, I was able to play it without pain. Alas, I was not able to play with any kind of skill. So I practiced. And practiced.

I sucked really badly for over a year.

But then I found myself getting to the point where the southpaw fumblings began to sound like music. I was learning some really crazy jazz chords and was jamming with a bassist friend whenever I could. I was learning stuff I'd never been able to play right handed. I was actually getting to the point where I was as good as a lefty as I had been as a righty. Well, I never quite got the fluid speed down - my left handed picking was still a bit clunky but my right hand took to fretting really well.

In the fall of 2003, I tried one of my right-handed guitars again and found myself able to play it without pain. It seems that the time spend away from it was enough to let my hands heal. I started playing that more regularly and found that while I lost a little bit of the ease and facility with the instrument, I never lost the spark. Soon enough I was playing right handed exclusively and never went back to the lefty.

I still can't play the piano. When I try, my hands got sore really quickly. But that's ok. I was never a pianist. I was a guitarist.

So now. Whenever I pick up my guitar. I know that one day I may have to put it down again for good. Happily that's not today. And for as long as it's not today, I'm gonna play that thing like there's no tomorrow.