I think I have forgotten how to fall asleep. I get into bed. I turn off the light. I listen to the darkness. An hour earlier I was exhausted, could hardly keep my eyes open, can hardly even as I write this. But as soon as I wash my face, put on my pajamas, and crawl expectantly into bed, my body no longer remembers rest.
This is not a new development. I have been afraid of the dark since I was a little girl, afraid of the scaly things living under my bed, of the danger that exists where you can’t see, of empty space. When I was 4 my parents would kiss me goodnight, tuck the blankets around my child’s body, turn on the nightlight, and cover me with a refrigerator box. I did not sleep without the box until Mom and Dad bought me a canopy bed when I was 6; I did not sleep in total darkness for an entire night until I was 18. But it is not the darkness that keeps me awake now.
I experienced my first bout of lower back pain when I was 13 years old, waking up one morning with a pinched nerve in my groin area and sacrum so pronounced it was difficult to walk, to sit down, to stand up (using the toilet was excruciating). After a few weeks and many trips to the Chiropractor, it would right itself. But over the next 18 years the pain lying dormant in my spine would erupt over and over again, flowering not always in my lower back, but in my shoulders, my neck, my knees, the tops of my feet. Doctors would prescribe pain meds (which were ineffective), but the Chiropractor, a couple yoga classes, and a few extra walks were enough to keep the pain at bay, momentarily at least.
Then, in April of 2010 I found myself waiting for the subway in Jamaica Plain on my way to a yoga class and at the peak of the best shape I would ever be in my life. I had spent a year consciously strengthening my body willing it to participate in any and all physical activities, ready at any moment to fling itself running, dancing and twisting into a host of strange locations (including the beds of quite a few gentlemen). I was standing on the platform waiting for my best friend, Penny, the pockets of my hot pink sweatshirt laden with keys, a phone, gifts for Penny, and a water bottle. When she called because she had forgotten her T pass I stepped onto the escalator to meet her at the turnstiles on the upper level. Two steps up, my boot caught and I careened forward, slamming my right shoulder into a metal step, subsequently experiencing the worst pain I’d ever felt in my entire life. The escalator carried me wailing the rest of the way up, depositing me along with the now scattered contents of my pockets at the top of escalator. I rolled from my stomach to my back and felt my shoulder click into place.
The next yoga class I attended would be spent laying on my mat crying. I tried to keep going to class, no more down dog, no more inversions and ended up on my back crying over and over again. After 6 months of trying (read: crying) I stopped going altogether. My shoulder pain wormed it’s way through my whole body. I couldn’t run. I stopped dancing. And then I stopped doing anything. And my muscles tightened, my joints weakened, and then, about a year ago, the Pain permanently settled itself not-so-comfortably into my sacroiliac joint.
Pain is a constant. Every moment I am still it makes itself known; every time I take a step, it asserts itself. It is my first waking sensation, it aches as I fall asleep. It defines me: I am a person in pain. I know my friends are sick of hearing about it. I wonder if they think it is my fault. I wonder if they are right.
I should not be surprised. I feel like I’ve been hurting my whole life--my back, yes, but also this dull ache behind my sternum that says, “This Pain is deserved, and it is forever.” That is what I think about when I cannot sleep: my back, my shoulder, my heart, all hurting. I cannot go to work in the morning, I cannot see another person, I cannot smile, it hurts too badly. I am just so sad. How do I find myself in this? Where is my refrigerator box?
Now not just doctors have failed to relieve my Pain, but Chiropractors, and Physical Therapists. There is nothing left to do except the hardest thing, which is strengthen my busted body so my suffering, weak, little SI joint, doesn’t have to work so hard. I just started seeing a personal trainer who specializes in clients with SI pain. I see a massage therapist twice a month, and though that sounds relaxing, it is also incredibly painful. I often hurt worse before I hurt less, which is, she assures me, how it works. But yoga has been the most difficult return, yielding, as it tends to, some incredibly relevant rewards.
In a one on one session with my yoga teacher and dear friend Anna, I step my left foot back into a low lunge. “You’ll put less pressure on your knee if you move your front foot forward.” I move into a deeper lunge, my hips spreading like cold butter on dry toast. “I can’t hold myself up!” I shout. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t hold myself up.” I am surprised by my own fear. In this moment, my body is my whole world, and I cannot hold it. “Relax your right hip,” Anna says, “Keep your knee over the front foot.” I am trembling, I am weeping, but I am not on my back. “One more breath.” I take it. “Bring your hands to the floor.”
My entire life my mom has been talking about her body saying, “Yes.” When she eats a salad, when she practices constructive rest, when she drinks her morning smoothies made of kale. I always thought this was, to quote my dear friend Leah, “hipster nonsense.” Until, driving hope in my little zipcar, my nerves tingling, my muscles stretched, my hips open, I realized this is the feeling of Yes.” It was like my body was thanking me; it was gratitude.
That night I still could not sleep. My back still hurting, the space behind my sternum still holding this aching emptiness. “Relax your hip.”
Close your eyes.
Steady your breath.
Unclench your fists.
Slowly, so slowly unravel.
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