My body amazes me.
Last night I went snowboarding. Lots of things worked against me. The snow had been trashed by holiday vacationers for a week. Warm day time temperatures had caused a lot of melting. It resulted in a lot of hard pack and ice with me still a novice snowboarder. That means falling a lot.
The pain! You try to get a good carve going on. You build up some speed and confidence. Then you hit a patch of ice in the middle of a turn, lose all grip, and bash your bum on a solid slab. When you stop sliding you lie there for a moment. It hurts. And so you say in a slowed but normal volume voice, “Ow.” Vocalizing it seems necessary. You assess the damage. Yep, it hurts. “Ow,” you say again. Everything moves, good. No broken gear either. You wonder why you do this to yourself. You think of the drive home, a warm shower, and a hot cup of that beef stew you made the other night. Yeah, last run of the night. Get to the bottom of the hill and go home.
You stand up and your hip protests a little, but it moves as it should. You get to the bottom of the hill and straight ahead you see the lodge and know that the parking lot lies just beyond. But you hang a left and get back on the lift for another run!
Then you wake up the next day trying to figure out how to work the knots out of your hips and shoulders. So you make an espresso, do some stretches, and start planning your next trip. Amazing!
Yes, it hurts. Perhaps you have seen those ads for the Marine Corps that read, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” Not really. Pain results when your body gets subjected to forces it cannot withstand. But you can work through the pain to learn and reduce the risks in the future. Then you realize the temporary nature of pain* and can push even further to test your limits. By understanding what the pain means we can improve ourselves.
Learning. In that I can find the joy of pain.
* Some forms of physical pain last a lifetime if not treated/medicated. I do not suffer from any of those at this time and do not mean this to apply to those types of pain.
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