The Cure for Emotional Pain is Physical Pain

I learned a couple of truths this morning: 1) I can be really stupid sometimes and 2) the cure for emotional pain, sometimes, is physical pain.  And now I share it with blogland... as I often do.

First, the background...

This weekend I told my Mom we wanted to come see her and my Dad the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Our friends K&I will be in Venice (about an hour south of where my parents live) for the Thanksgiving holiday, and since they live in London, we don't get to see them often.  So we thought to ourselves, let's see my parents, see my Grammie, and see K&I for Thanksgiving.  Well, we had a bit of a disagreement/discussion with my parents about the whole thing because they would prefer we don't come that weekend.  Quite frankly, it completely blows my mind.  No matter what is going on in our lives, Mr. Darcy & I work extra, even when we're exhausted beyond compare, to do whatever needs to get done so that we can make time if our family wants to come visit.  We always want to see our family, always.  One thing we've learned from losing all of our grandparents except one and losing friends and colleagues, is you never know what is going to happen when so make the most of every opportunity you get to see someone you love.  I know that this isn't about me, and I know they love me.  But it sure doesn't make me feel great.

So this morning, I told Mr. Darcy I had to go for a walk.  The pool was not going to cut it.  I needed major stress relief. I needed resistance to fight against and to win. I told him I really wanted to run.  He told me to go for the walk but not to run. Some of his last words before he backed down the drive way were, "Don't jog.  Don't push yourself." 

This is where I learned I can be really stupid sometimes.

I should have known that it would be like the pool - buoy swim is just not enough, I have to cheat and kick for a little bit.  I know myself pretty well, and I should have known.  Maybe I did, but maybe my subconscious didn't care.  Whatever it was, it was me being stupid. 

After walking for 5 minutes, I started running.  I didn't think about what I was doing, my body just did it.  For the 1st 2 minutes, it felt awesome.  Then my leg started to hurt, but it was just a little bit and it wasn't in my calf so I told myself it was probably just my back being silly because I hadn't run in awhile.  By the end of the 5 minutes I had pain in my calf too.  I walked a minute and decided I'd do 5/1's even though I could feel the muscles in my leg getting tighter. (Yes, I am stupid.)  2 minutes into my 2nd run, I walked because even in my state of denial admitted that this was bad.  I had pain in 3 different place in my calf, the back right side of my quad near my knee, a burning pain in my arch, and for the first time, actual pain on my knee.  I walked the rest of the way home, except (Yes, I am stupid) for the last little stretch to the house... after just telling myself I should NOT finish the 2 mile loop but turn toward the house because I have little kids that I have to take care of and if I mess myself up bad enough I won't be able to do it.  So, I ran the last bit home.  Seriously deficient in the usage of brain cells this morning.

The Cure for Emotional Pain is Physical Pain.

The good news is that all that physical pain made me get over the situation with my parents.  Yes, it still hurts but not nearly as much.  I realize that they have their issues and that they've always been this way.  And I'm not saying that they don't have alot going on.  They do.  But I realized that seeing grandparents, friends and colleagues die or disappear into Alzheimer's has made me into a person who does everything she can to make the time for family and those she cares about, no matter what it takes.  And all that physical pain was worth every ounce of cure for that emotional pain.

Besides, it let me circle in red on my legs all the places that have been hurting (other than the knee thing that was new, but I circled those too) over the past few weeks.  I'm still hoping the orthopedic doctor going to say it's nothing tomorrow... even if realistically, I know that this much pain over this length of time cannot be "nothing."  But I'm a dreamer.

And I'm off to take some advil...