People tell me I should smile more.

But look inside me.

My toes. My toes point soundly forward in shoes that should have my prescription orthotics in them.  I choose not to because I’m 28 and I’m wearing heels as long as I can, so I can feel the “normal” parts of my 20s – and choose pain that I cause myself, thank you very much. I want reminders in 5 years that I could pass as someone my age.  Right now my toes are sound.  I trust my toes, most of the time.

My plantar fascias are aching. They threaten to cramp most nights as I lie in bed, still awake after hours of restlessness.  They ache and throb as if my heart itself has moved to the bottom of my feet. I ask a lot of my feet. These feet hold me in place as I struggle against the rest of me to cook, bathe, check the mail, pedal my bike, press the sewing machine pedal, and occasionally walk in high fashion runway shows.

Though I’m largely unaware of the pain until I pop my ankles, they remain stiff all the time. I rotate my feet clockwise and counterclockwise, back and forth in quick rhythm, in attempt to loosen my ankles and rice krispies happen.  You know, snap, crackle, and pop. Rice Krispies don’t hurt, but my joints do. How can these sounds accompany so much hidden pain that suddenly takes the red carpet?

My knees are chronically, invisibly enlarged from years of soccer and running long before I knew why my injuries were so intense, why they didn’t heal like they should. My quads and hamstrings play injury-tennis, back and forth. The pain is in your court now, left hammie. My weakened muscles are constantly overcompensating for what my body can’t naturally do: fight inflammation, toxins created by overuse, expectant injury, and scarred tissues and bone spurs.  Instead, my body fights my joints as if they are alien matter. Continue reading Holding Hands With the Reaper →