Give til it hurts

It's all about pain. Apparently. Hit the gym....give til it hurts. Hit the driving range, hit balls til your arm feels like it's gonna fall off. Push ups? Sit ups? Triceps? Weight lifting?I just do not know my body's limits, apparently. Go for a walk? Four miles, power walking, uphill, both ways.
Now I'm paying. The chiropractor loves to see me coming. "You're getting there," he says"You need to take it a little easy...not so aggressive, try walking....gently."

I do not do anything gently. It's all or nothing. Chiropractor equals pain. In spite of the many visits, because I could not stay away from the gym, my body is now in a constant state of sore. "Go get a massage," my friends say, "It will feel so good!"
I don't know...I've never had one before. "You've never had a massage? Get a massage." So I finally called, and a week later I went for my massage. I just love to pay for pain, evidently.
"Are you okay?" The therapist asks. I feel crunching and popping and muscles being attacked. "Most people would not be able to stand this their first visit." I think my body is used to it, I think. Just more pain, nothing new.
"Let me know if it gets to an 8 or a 9 on the pain scale," she says. I suffer through it, and don't really notice much difference. It's like I 'm addicted to the pain;I do not know what it's like to feel no pain.

"Do you remember when it all started?" Good question. Maybe it started when I was 7 and I took ballet lessons and I worked and danced and had to put my feet into those tiny little shoes with the wooden toe, protecting my baby feet with nothing more than pieces of lamb's wool. Or maybe it started when I was pitching a softball over home plate so fast the other team's coach asked my coach to ask me to please not pitch so fast. Or maybe it started when I played field hockey and pushed myself to lose twenty pounds over one summer, because I could.

Pain's got my number.

So it appears I will live in painful suffering until something gives. "It's your stress," the doctor says. "It's your shoulders," the therapist says. "Try acupuncture." More pain.
" Open the Chardonnay, I say. Tomorrow is another day. I'm getting used to it.