For my body… and my self-pity
These days, it’s all about recovery. Recovery from a back injury, recovery from a knee injury, recovery from a shoulder injury. I can’t remember my body ever taking such a violent hit across every crucial joint. Everything has been put on hold, and I’ve had trouble getting out of bed, despite ingesting three different painkillers four times a day.
I went into the summer with such vigor and excitement. Four full months of working out by the water, cooling off with a refreshing dip, playing beach volleyball in the sand, improving my game and in general just having a hell of a time – now substituted with days on end lying around, bored out of my mind, entire posterior chain hurting with every movement. And to top it off, my apartment reaching sauna-like states of warmth and moisture, because Mother Earth is not happy and has decided to push the thermostat into overdrive.
I’ve longed for alcohol these days. Not in the way I anticipated. Not because summer came, with all its bright warm light and allure. Not because people from every nook and corner, after months in wet sludge and darkness, woke up to life again, carefully and delicately, savouring this brief seasonal relief. But because I want to be taken away, even for a minute, from this active decay I find myself in the centre of, this unravelling of my body and mind.
Rarely have I felt this sorry for myself.