It's not that I'm just stubborn. Ok, I am pretty stubborn. But that's not all there is to it. It's simply that the idea of rest and recuperation seem to simply not click with my brain. That one part of my self-preservation instinct might be faultily wired.
This might not come as basic knowledge to everyone. After a relatively traumatic experience, it's not the day of nor the day after that you really begin to feel it. It's the third day, well after your body has registered and processed the shock, followed by the eradication of any remaining doubt. If you might feel like it's not too bad on the first two days, don't get ahead of yourself. Wait till the third day. Then you know for sure.
My day 3 was enough to make me cry. I always want to think of myself as a durable human being, grated stronger by years of hardship, and then indestructible by more years of physical and mental strength building on top. There's nothing I can't stand more than feeling helpless. It simply feels too unreal, too ridiculous, and too unacceptable to me. It's all too easy to spiral into a vicious circle: the more I feel like I can't do something, the more I want to do it, while ignoring the fact that the more my body tells me that I can't do something while it's hurt probably means the more I shouldn't do it. I find it nearly impossible to just wait it out, until I'm clearly ready to go again. You'd have better luck at keeping a 5-year-old still until an injury completely heals. At least with a 5-year-old, you might be able to BS a little and scare her into acquiescence. When it comes to my own body, as an adult, not many things scare me these days, and that's not exactly a good thing.
I can't stand being idle. More so when it seems as if I have no choice but to be idle. Not doing anything for an extended period of time drives me up the wall, and it's only worse when it appears as though I have no other options. I've always been a fixer, a caretaker, and the constant sense of responsibility doesn't go away when I'm injured. The worst part is that the more I'm told that I shouldn't be doing anything, the more I seem to want to challenge that very concept and then end up pushing myself too hard. Like, Friday night, just 24 hours after falling from and then getting run over by a horse, I decided that I was feeling better, and that I was bored and restless to the point of having to do something. Despite having been "forbidden" to do housework by my husband, I insisted on cleaning the kitchen. And then yesterday, once again I refused to let anything get in my way, and just had to clean the kitchen some more and then make dessert after dinner. Well, all good, until today, when I crashed. You'd think I would've learned my lessons from long ago, because this sure isn't the first time I've gotten hurt pretty badly. Nope. Not even close. Because I'm stubborn, remember?
And I felt it all too keenly today. I felt so beaten, so exhausted, it was as if I couldn't sleep enough. My body has flipped the switch and decided in no time that enough is enough. If my brain wasn't going to be rational enough to give it a rest, my body was going to take extreme measures and force my brain to concede and back down. So I cried, out of sheer frustration at being incapacitated, at not being able to get a hug from my husband without wincing and having to relocate his hands, at not being able to complete even the smallest tasks without running out of breath. I've been trying so hard to tough it out, to refuse to admit exactly how much pain and discomfort I've been in, and to not blame my body for just how little trauma it can handle before it full on shuts off on me. I so desperately wanted to get back onto the horse and back into the yoga studio this coming week, yet my bruised ribs and damaged muscles started all but screaming, "not happening, you nutcase!" And you know what? It pissed me off to no ends. It pissed me off that I was hurting more, and therefore, I couldn't do things even more. I couldn't stand feeling that way.
Whatever happened to ahimsa? Did I just all of a sudden, forget all about the whole concept of being nice to myself and not punishing my body?
I admitted defeat, allowed Ezra to make dinner and then do all the cleaning up afterwards. I willingly let Ezra do things for me and help me with everything without protest. It took yet another hard lesson for me to accept a simple truth: we are human beings made of flesh and blood, and our bodies come with limitations and clear boundaries. It does't mean we're weak. It just means that we need a break when we need to, and that when our bodies tell us so, we need to listen and agree. Pushing ourselves too far, too hard, too soon will only mean a longer wait to get better. Ignoring your body's messages when it's flashing red lights and sounding the warning buzzers at you is not being tough. It's being unwise and neglecting your health. I'm taking at least this whole week off from riding and yoga, and I'm going to pay attention to how I actually feel, not how I want to feel, before I resume my regular routine of activities.
And since I got some downtime on my hands, I discovered this little gem, which gave me some good giggles (hey, laughter is a good medicine, right?) and made me feel slightly better: What would George say?
Yes, even Olympic riders fall off. Top professional riders, to this day, decades into their grand prix careers, still have moments that make people go "dude, what the &%^#* are you doing there? I thought you learned this crap 20 years ago!" We are all human. We all have bad days. We all have our "oh shit" moments, and some of which take slightly longer than others to recover from. It doesn't mean anything more than the mere fact that we are human beings, with human bodies and human minds, which sometimes, make mistakes, feel tired, get hurt, or need rests.
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