Tag Archives: yoga

A Physical Disaster

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I have been on hiatus from my blog for the last two weeks. It wasn’t by choice, but was forced upon me by things outside of my control. You see, my body betrayed me—not once, but twice. It all started on Thanksgiving morning.

Knowing that excessive eating and drinking was in store for me that day, I set my alarm for 7:00 am. I wanted to start the day off right. This may not seem all that early if there is a turkey to stuff so that it is ready by 3:00. This, however, was not in my plan, as each year I cheat on Thanksgiving. I don’t mean the kind of cheating like going off of a diet (which of course I do). I mean that—as much as I love to cook— I order our Thanksgiving feast from a fabulous French restaurant.

The first time we did this was seven years ago—the year our son was born. A week after his birth, we found ourselves moving into a new home, which also happened to be just a few days before Thanksgiving. My mother had seen an advertisement in a local paper for a complete Thanksgiving dinner: turkey, stuffing with roasted chestnuts, haricot vert with garlic, fresh cranberries, potatoes (both sweet and mashed), salad with balsamic vinaigrette, biscuits, gravy, and an apple torte for dessert. On that Thanksgiving day seven years ago, I discovered something incredible: by ordering the entire meal, I could enjoy it without any of the stress of cooking and I could use the time I would have been in the kitchen to drink and play games with the family. A tradition was born.

Now back to this Thanksgiving.

As I was saying, I woke up early to start the day off right, and that meant going to hot yoga. I couldn’t think of a better way to prepare for a full day of gluttony than by burning hundreds of calories in a 105 degree room. Just as I was about to get dressed, I noticed that the living room was a bit messy. As I was tossing a napkin into the garbage, I felt a sudden blinding pain shoot through my lower back, and into my legs. I could no longer stand up, and had to grab hold of the furniture next to me so that I wouldn’t go crashing to the floor.

After what felt like an eternity, I slowly dragged myself down the hall to my bedroom to wake up my husband. By the time I got there, I was hysterical and unable to get out the words to tell him that I’d hurt my back. When I finally told him, he got dressed so he could get me some kind of painkiller—we had nothing in the house. Rather than lie in the bed—which suddenly felt too soft—I had him help me back to the living room where I could lie on the floor. While he was off at the pharmacy, I decided to call my mom to get her opinion as to what I might have done to my back. I received all of the proper sympathy that a child wants to get from her parent, but—as she hasn’t had many back issues—she couldn’t give me a diagnosis. A few minutes after we hung up, my younger sister called. Unfortunately for her, she is an expert on back pain, as she is a chronic sufferer due to an injury while in the Army. Fortunately for me, however, she gave me some practical advice that would help me be able to get up off the floor, and would help me to walk. I did everything she told me, and once I felt the pain subside a little, I attempted to get up on my own. What I found was, although the pain was still there, it was much more mild and I could walk without much discomfort. Thanksgiving was saved!

Then I woke up the next day.

The pain was back, and if it weren’t debilitating enough to be in constant pain in any position, I suddenly found myself with a fever. My body had betrayed me a second time. I spent the next three days in a somewhat delirious state brought on by a temperature of 102. In fact, it is such a blur that I can’t even distinguish one day from the next as I try to write about it now. All I can say is that by Monday morning, I was determined to get to both the chiropractor and the doctor. What I found out was that I had hurt a disk in my lower back, and I had bronchitis.

During those five days in bed, I didn’t turn on my computer once. It is the longest I have gone without logging into Facebook or Twitter since becoming a mild social-media addict. It is also the longest I have gone without writing even a single sentence for my blog. Now, if you did that math about how many days it has been since my body fully recovered, you will have noticed that I’ve been better for more than a week. I’ll explain my other reason for not writing in my next post, which will be in a few days. Promise.

[By the way, I have no photos of this year's Thanksgiving, as taking pictures was the last thing on my mind. The pictures in this post are from  Thanksgivings 2009, courtesy of my sister, and fellow blogger Kate.]

Just another Mother’s Day?

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Every year I ask for the same thing for Mother’s Day, and I never get it—that is, until today. Each year, I desperately want a day off. I mean, is it selfish of me to want a day off from motherhood—a day when no one is asking me to get them something to eat or drink, a day when I am not there to hear the arguments over the television’s volume, and especially a day when I am not on anyone else’s schedule? Okay, maybe it is selfish, but I don’t know of any mom who would begrudge me a few hours of freedom.

This day was especially rewarding as it began with a hot yoga class taken with one of my closest friends. Hot yoga is something that is both frightening—it is 90 minutes of yoga set in a 105 degree room—and exhillerating because when it is over, your body is completely limber and the feel of fresh air from outside the room is like a rush of pure pleasure after the suffocating heat of the studio. The best part of the morning, besides the yoga, was leaving the house while everyone was still asleep—no one was awake to ask me where I was going, no one was there to beg me not to leave, and most importantly no one was awake to ask me when I’d be back. The day was starting out to be truly my own.

From there, my friend and I had a well-deserved cup of coffee, a bite to eat, and some much-needed conversation. I must say that even with all the chaos that is my life at times, I have always made spending time with my friends a priority. Whenever one of them tries to arrange a time to meet, I never say no if I can help it. Fortunately for me, I have a very understanding husband who never questions this need—and almost always keeps the kids so I can go out. Today was similar in that he kept the kids while I was out, but it was even better than that since it didn’t involve a few hours for dinner in the evening—it was a whole day to myself! We shopped, we talked, we tried on dresses, we spent more than five minutes running through D.S.W. looking for a well-deserved pair of sandals—it was wonderful. And throughout it all, I only received a single call from home from my daughter asking me if she could buy a book online—not asking me to come home or complaining about being bored—just a simple question which I happily responded “yes.”

So, now I am home, seven hours after I left, and I am doing the last thing that I asked for this Mother’s Day—time to sit and write. I feel calm and relaxed in a way that I haven’t in a long time. I am rejuvenated. I am happy. I am ready to face the questions about dinner, the fights over the television, and the complaints that there isn’t any food in the house since I didn’t go food shopping today (oh, well, what can you do?).

My advice to my daughter is simple—take time for yourself. As you get older, the demands on your time will only intensify—you will have more homework, which will give you less free time to watch television or read a book, and you’ll have more after school and weekend activities which will give you even less time with your friends—and almost no time for yourself. Be selfish with your time when you know that it will make you a happier, calmer person—like me, on the best Mother’s Day ever.