Slow Motion

Music pulsing, heartbeats pounding and all I can think about is how my big toe is falling asleep, how my left knee is about to lock but I'm pushing past it because I love this song - this band. While everyone doesn't want it to end, I'm counting down how many songs I have left until I can sit down and not get up for a while. I won't sit until I know because everything hurts more after I sit and then try to get back up. 

This has been my most common rant since I can remember of wanting to be "normal." 

My definition of normal is much different than yours, that's for sure. 

My normal means being able to stand in lines without having to lean on something. My normal means being able to go for a run without wanting to die from my knee trying to kill me. My normal means not feeling sick and like I need to sleep for four days after a long day. 

Instead, I feel like I miss out on so many things because my body is holding me back. My friends would want to go bowling and I'd dread it. My hands would hurt real fast from throwing the ball once. They'd be having a blast and I'd be rubbing my fingers and telling people to skip me, go for me, but when no one would I'd suck it up instead of having to explain.

I hate explaining. "Sorry I can't, hurts too much"

But some experiences are worth the recovery and my body screaming at me.

I love concerts. I love them so much. I love feeling the music vibrate my vertebrae and losing my voice from screaming and singing along so loud. I love clapping and dancing along even though I can't dance. All these feelings are worth the next few days of god awful back pain, my knees screaming each time I go up and down stairs because I stood so long they tried to lock but I wouldn't have it. It is worth the weird hip pains, awful sore throat and ridiculously weird headache. It's worth all of this purely because I'll have that experience, that memory with me forever and that's something I'd be happy.

Sure, I have moments of regret as to "oh I should have worn different shoes" because I think that would help - I promise it wouldn't. But those moments are so small that I don't notice those thoughts much.

I notice my back most of all. I notice how it feels like it's groaning all through my body and trying to pull me into a strange position on a train. I notice my jaw trying to clench because so many parts of me hurt but I won't let it because I know it'll cause headaches. I notice my feet feel swollen and itchy. Itchy from the skin trying to be pulled every which way because they're so full. I notice my hands feel like they're going in slow motion while my brain is going fast. I notice my body tends to be slow motion when I feel I should be going fast, so fast. 

Most of all, I notice myself. 

Noticing myself, like my physical self, is very uncomfortable to me. I don't like being aware of my body because the "general" pain I have, I ignore. I push it out by not being in my body mentally. This is a skill I have learned over the years. Yet, when getting a shot, or some sort of new pain occurs it hurts more than ever because everything else surfaces. I can't ignore one pain and not another. It is an all or nothing game I'm playing.

This game I play, I can push everything away until it's screaming. 

I like to think of the pain scale* as one being a minor pest like a kid poking me in the side, to ten being that part of me is screaming so loud it can no longer be ignored. 

Once I'm at screaming level (a ten), I can't ignore it and everything shifts. My body pulls me down, my thoughts are heavy and trying to think of the fastest and easiest way I can climb into my bed or be in a comfortable position. 

At the concert, I was okay standing for almost two hours. But all I kept thinking as I felt like my body dragged to the car was "wow, I bet most of these people will just be tired but not have the same aftermath that I will. They're lucky. This was worth it." 

My toes were past screaming now and we made it to the car. Shoes off, feet up, and I could breath in and out just as I know to do. To bring myself to a whole other part of ignoring this screaming and the scream turns down to a whisper once more. 

Maybe I'm not always in slow motion.

Thanks for reading!

*pain scale: the scale that doctors use, one being the least amount of pain. ten being the worst pain you've ever felt in your life.