My body melts down when it doesn’t get what it needs.
Not like the Wicked Witch of the West in the rain or anything, but my nervous system crashes. I get shaky. I can’t form words properly. Doctors who are supposed to be doing surgery on other people have to lead me to a quiet room with blankets and pillows stolen off a stretcher. (Shout out to Exeter Hospital for giving people warm blankets, even if those people aren’t technically being treated.)
I just got home from two weeks in New Hampshire where I was helping my aunt after surgery. While she’s a healthy, world-traveling, hash tag goals 85-year-old who can outpace me on walks, help move furniture, and recovered from the surgery very well, it still felt like a lot. I feel tired and discombobulated, especially after sitting in a highly unexpected half hour in traffic, when the trip should have taken eight minutes.
I really wanted to write today, because I’ve been so focused on other things for the last three weeks. Because today is my best day of the week to get things done - at least on paper. Because this week is filled with day-long void moons and, after losing an essay I loved to the internet black hole when I ignored my “don’t do anything you want to last during a void moon” rule, I am afraid that if it doesn’t happen right the F now, it won’t happen at all.
Which is my first cue to put my hands up and back slowly away. Whenever my brain says NOW IS THE ONLY TIME YOUR ONLY CHANCE IF YOU DON’T DO IT NOW YOU FAAAAAAIIIIIILLLLLLLL… I know that’s my cue to do something else, anything else.
Brain says yes. Body gives a hard no. Especially since I just realized I haven’t eaten any protein today. Or at least not enough. A sprinkle of chia seeds is apparently not enough.
The body is a messenger. When my head aches, I know that it’s time to drink more water and rest. When I start to feel shaky and nervous, I know it’s time to eat some protein and be alone for a while so I don’t 1) lose my ability to speak entirely or 2) verbally carve out someone’s spleen with my unadulterated frustration.
My body tells me very clearly when it’s done.
Sounds great, right? Like maybe something we should all have intrinsically. (And I guess we do? At least until every adult in our young lives tells us to stop.) But it took my five years of genuinely doing not much aside from listening to my body to get here. And still, I find myself missing cues. Big ones.
And this, my friends, is how we get taken out.
A few months ago, my back spasmed so badly that I ended up on the bathroom floor for three hours. Because I couldn’t move without pain so severe I scared the cats into another dimension with my screams. This is not an exaggeration. Except maybe for the alternate dimension part. I don’t know where those cats go. That’s none of my business. And what did I do to deserve such a terrible back spasm, you ask? Why, I was getting out of the shower. Nothing fancy. No high kicks. Just climbing out of the shower to dry myself off. And my back exploded.
That’s a humbling moment. After five years of listening to my body, I get laid out for a week for the grand crime of getting out of the shower.
Maybe there are some deeper changes that were being asked for, and those are still unfolding, but after a week of recovering from that back spasm and then a similar (if slightly less dramatic) back spasm three weeks later, I realized that my body was asking to get stronger.
Something that, to be fair, it’s been asking for for a very long time. I listened for a while, I worked with a trainer at a really cool gym in Santa Rosa. (Movement by Design is great if you live in the Bay Area and are also a middle aged lady recovering from adrenal burnout so extreme that you aren’t allowed to do anything more strenuous than walk slowly for two years.) My body started to shift, get stronger. And then I ran out of money for personal weekly sessions. Which is usually my cue to pick up the slack and continue on my own. Which I did. Sorta. But then it kind of faded because I am a framework person. An “I have already paid for this and so I am going to go no matter how hard my brain tries to wiggle me out of my commitment” person. Some call it lazy. I call it A Burning Need for Structure.
So I guess my back was telling me to get back to work. Because there are the obvious signals - I need a bathroom, I need protein, I need a nap. I’ve gotten much better about listening to those. At least when I’m not stuck in out-of-nowhere gridlocked traffic with no exit in sight. But there are also longer term signals, those drifting, repetitive thoughts asking you do something healthy. I guess those are easy to ignore. Until your back decides it’s had enough of your slouching, banana slug-like core, and tells you to get it together already.
Once again, I am getting it together. This time via regular barre classes. I’ve known for years that I need to get stronger again. I’m actually a very athletic person and I’m happier when I’m challenging my body daily. But when you’re told by a health professional that you can’t exercise until your tapped adrenals have restored themselves to their factory settings, you can forget that fact. The couch and your latest novel and snack can encourage you to stay in stasis. The call of broccoli can in no way compete with potato chips. Weights who want to be lifted can’t hold a candle to whatever new thing is streaming.
For me, it took years to learn how to listen to my body. And I’m still learning. Given that I’m 48, I’m going to master this level…and then get hit with menopause as soon as I relax.
This was my second essay for Substack. If you would like to receive my writing in your inbox, you can subscribe here.