I woke up early this morning, well, I mean it was technically morning, because it was after midnight, with violent leg cramps, the kind that drag me out of bed to walk in hobbling, cussing arcs back and forth around my bed. Cussing more because I didn't turn on the light and stumbled into the corner of my bed frame. New bruise. It can join the fifty or so others sprinkled all over my body. My favorite right now might be the foot shaped bruise on my forearm - complete with toe prints! Thank you, Maria - nothing like a surprise souvenir from jiu jitsu. But my early morning pacing wasn't from rolling, but rather from running.
My children will tell you, I don't run. I walk, I sprint, I amble, I sometimes hobble and limp, but I don't run. Or at least, I don't run often. I'm trying to change that. There are deterrents - leg cramps, shin splints, sore feet, the time I dislocated my shoulder, the fact that I only have time to run at night, and there are some creepy people hanging out on the trail at night...but, still I try. My first attempt at running came about three years ago, when I woke up one day and said, "well, that's enough of sitting around on my ass," and I walked out the door and started slowly circling the park. That first month, I was in so much pain it became my constant companion. I could have named the pain, taken it out to dinner, bought it a drink or two, because it was real and tangible and never left my side. My shins ached, my hips burned, my back felt broken, and for some ungodly reason, my arms hurt. I didn't understand what arms had to do with running. But running brought me to kickboxing, which brought me to jiu jitsu, and so I suppose in some ways, those first couple of months of running in my neighborhood changed my life - and possibly saved it along the way. But I still hate running, and I let it go in favor of cardio classes and weights and boxing. Now I'm back at it, for no reason other than I'm turning 44 this year (this month really) and while I'm no longer young and spry, I'll never again be as young as I am right now. I have no way of knowing what parts of my body will give out tomorrow, or next year, or ten years from now. If I'm going to do something, I might as well start it now.
A friend joked with me not too long ago that I must really hate myself to punish myself physically the way that I do. I don't look like I'm as active as I am, but I put my body through a lot in a week - jiu jitsu, cardio classes, MMA, running, yoga, not to mention normal day-to-day wear and tear from working and hauling groceries, and cleaning my house, and laughing and drinking and being alive. But I had to clarify that I don't hate myself - I spent enough years doing that. I do the things I do because I actually LIKE myself, I like my body, and I want to celebrate the fact that it can do so many things. I just wish I'd figured that out long before I did.
Growing up, "body" was a dirty word in our house. Bodies were dirty and most parts were better off being covered up and kept secret, even from ourselves. Young girls didn't look at their bodies, didn't think about their bodies, except to keep them thin, because that was what men wanted. Girls who touched their bodies were dirty and my mother was willing to beat the dirty right out of me, or out of my brother, who I suppose was a dirty boy in his own right. That duality was confusing - how could something so shameful be something worth so much? As a child, the message received was that I had no real control of my own body. My mother would control how it looked, how I dressed, how I wore my hair, because my body was really only there to transport me from place A to place B until there was a man who wanted my body enough that he would take over where she had left off. And only a man who wanted to marry me had any right at all to my body in any way, and what I felt about it had no bearing in one way or another. It was my body, but I merely lived in it, had no ownership of it or what I did with it.
Rebellion as I grew up meant being careless with my body. Reckless. I broke bone after bone, learning to ride a skateboard, falling off a balance beam, trying some crazy stunt involving roller skates and a bike and a really high hill. And as I got older, being careless and reckless meant giving other people access to my body. It'd never been mine to control, and so I didn't know how to take back ownership at that point, and the only thing I discovered was that there was some power over those to whom I had given the privilege of touch, whether it was the power over the creepy old guy in our neighborhood who liked to grope preadolescent behinds and wouldn't want his wife to know, or over the teenage boys who just wanted to touch some girl's boobs for the first time and were willing to pay for an icee if it got them a trip behind the 7 Eleven.
As an adult, I have abused and punished my body in every conceivable way - eating crap and gaining weight, not working my body the way it was intended, alcohol, sex, and at one time, self-harm. It's been easy to accept things done to my body, abuse heaped upon it, being raped, being taunted, and being controlled. There's truth in the statement that I am not my body - it's not the heart of who I am, any more than the car I drive is a representation of me. But my body is where I live, it's what I use to represent myself to the world, and it's what keeps me tied to this earth and to the people I love. I owe it respect and I owe it some care. In return, I'm finding myself amazed at what my body will actually do, and how much it can endure without breaking.
I have friends who are struggling with illnesses, their bodies partially out of control, and fighting every single day to take back ownership of all of their bodies. From a friend who lives every single day with a disease with which she negotiates for daily necessary movement and function, to a friend who is kicking the ass of cancer and went to her surgery wearing a tiara and a smile, because she knows who owns her body, and it's not cancer. They don't take their bodies for granted, and it would be insulting for me to do so, when I have so many fewer obstacles to go over.
So, I'm turning 44 soon, and my body is carrying around over four decades of wear and tear. Gravity has won several battles, and I carry the scars of a whole lot of others - stretch marks, surgical scars, imperfectly mended bones, and some that are only visible on the inside. But as I start my 45th year, I'll take nothing for granted, and I'll not allow myself excuses. I will push my body to do the things it was made to be able to do, and celebrate those things and reward my body with bubble baths, and long stretches, and a soft bed stocked with a warm kitty. I'll appreciate all the things my body can do, and accept the things it really can't do (I really, really can't climb a rope, even if it were to save my life). And I don't say that no one is ever going to touch me again, but now it happens on my own terms. And I won't say that no one is ever going to hit my body again, but now I know how to hit back. It took four decades, but I finally took ownership of the house I live in - and you know, despite the cellulite and the scars and the sagging, I kinda like what I've got. It's gotten me a lot of places in life, and there are a whole lot more places I want to travel with it.
And I say to my friends, celebrate your own bodies. Listen to them, and pay attention when they tell you something is wrong. Give yourself love, and push yourself to find your limits and go past them. There will come a time all too soon when our bodies won't be able to respond the way that we want them to. Until then, I'm going to enjoy every moment in my vintage edition. Even if some of the parts are hurting - at least they're letting me know they still work.
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