My only options for comfort are either lying on my right side or on my stomach. A clear, plastic bulb gathers blood from an open wound. I can’t drive, I can’t shower, I can’t work.

2012 has been a bit of a d*ck.

I’ve had a good thing going the past six months. I was working two jobs in order to pay the bills, and one was the first big-boy step into my sportswriting career. I would work 17-hour days when I was scheduled at both on the same day, and one such day was three hours from becoming an all-niter. No matter what, I drove home spouting my joy into song.

Then I welcomed a new year, but he was a horrible guest.

The amount of travel I had to do took a toll on my precious Saturn. In a span of a couple weeks, I ended up forking over $900 B.S. bucks to fix it. Soon after, my girlfriend discovered that her precious dog, Sandy, will have to be put down at some unknown date in the near future.

I was blindsided a week after that when my sportswriting position became expendable for the company I worked for. It’s one thing to have a door slammed in your face, but it hurts even more when it shuts on your foot. Laid off at age 22.

—

Through it all, the good and the bad, I had a sore that prevented me from performing to the high level that I am accustomed. I won’t go into detail, but for a while, it was extraordinarily agonizing. I would rather bear a child than go through that pain again.

After seeing a doctor in early December, I was told to avoid sweating until I got the problem surgically repaired (I haven’t worked out since November). I had to wait until yesterday (Jan. 23) to have to procedure. Now, I’m in a two-week recovery period with Netflix, Oxycodone and, after losing a bet, “The Hunger Games” trilogy by my side.

The wound itself doesn’t hurt that bad, so recuperating from that won’t be a challenge. These two weeks are dedicated to redefining myself.

I posted a blog in August, “ER,” and in it said I had two identities: A writer and a runner. I have always been one or the other, but they were both in some way limited by my recent ailment. Now, I can’t consider myself either.

Running gives me my health, my witty brain function and an intimate location for my thoughts. Writing allows me to inspire, tell stories worth sharing and to create images with words. I have pushed myself to improve in each category, but hardly ever together.

So I pose a declaration, if only to myself: When I am healed, I will put my body through whatever it takes to bond the two identities.

I will use this time to find a job suitable for my skill-set and harness the opportunity to expand my professional value. And when I can physically move around, I will find that spark that made me such a motivated runner.

I won’t be bound by the hardships this year has thrown in my way. I refuse to succumb to my situation and rot into a faceless nothing. If anything, this year has given me the strength and invigoration I haven’t had in years. For that, I am blessed.

So 2012, it’s only January. What else you got?

-Corey