Oh Body – why have you forsaken me?

Yesterday, we began renovations on our new home.  Today, my neck, back and achilles tendons no longer work.  Eight years ago, when we started the same process on our present home, I don’t remember feeling like this.

I remember holding the mini-jack hammer and cackling with joy as I exposed the brick in our kitchen.   I remember swinging the mini sledge with ease.  I do NOT remember having to pause every two steps as I moved a bathroom fixture out into the hall.  Sure, a 70 inch whirlpool tub with the motor still attached is heavy, but I used to be able to heft with the best of them.

The majority of my time yesterday was spent applying a rough plaster finish over top of painted wallpaper.  Until yesterday, we hadn’t realized that the walls had been wallpapered, nor that many spots on those walls were peeling.  Not a problem!  We’d had a similar issue in a couple of rooms in the old house.  I purchased a 20 lb container of spackle (felt my back twinge as I carried it to the car), brandished my spackling blades and went to work.  It was spectacular spackling!  Problem solved!  I didn’t realize there’d been an issue until we’d stopped for dinner at Tim Horton’s and I made the mistake of turning my head.

A couple of months back, I rolled over in bed and put my neck out – this time around it wasn’t as terrifying – probably because I wasn’t half asleep when it happened and I could actually move my head 15 degrees in either direction.  Plus, the “OH GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?” question was way easier to answer this time around.  I had just spent 2.5 hours moving my right shoulder up and down and up and down and side to side and side to side.  DING!  DING!  DING!!!  That clarified the shit out of this pinched nerve.

My face turned white as I tried to tilt my head back to receive David’s kiss in the kitchen this morning – it immediately became apparent that this body of mine needs a tune up.  I’d been putting it off becasue I’d been in the midst of a show and I didn’t want to deal with tension then, because I was afraid that if I had a massage, that my immune system would think that it was okay to give up and I’d get sick.  I was WRONG.  I should have had that massage.  ‘Cause now?  I don’t have any spare time and I kind of need to be able to move my neck and back and Achilles tendons.

Bright side?  I did get to spend my first full day in the new house.  And even if it is now covered in shards of drywall and the upstairs bathroom no longer exists and our bedroom only has sub-floor – it’s our wee cottage of a home and it WILL be amazing!