Pain In The...

The other day i woke up with a yell. An hour or so before my alarm was to go off i went to roll over in bed only to find my right knee had completely locked up in a bent position. My more than half-asleep brain was flooded with electrical pulses of sudden pain sent up through nerves and over synapses. Settling back into my initial position the strong grip of sleep inspired me to try and 'sleep it off'. The pain was too much for that. Somewhere after the soccer game the night before and the low pressure system that brought us rain in the early morn' my notoriously bad knees decided they'd had enough.

After hopping to the linen closet to get the heating pad i spent the next hour, half asleep, warming up my knee and slowly working it into the straight position. My knees hurt to some degree almost every minute of every day. Like growing up in a noisy house, after awhile the consistent pain just kind of turns into the white noise of the nervous system and goes almost unnoticed. This little reminder opened my eyes in more ways than just disrupting my slumber.

Between my knee incident and seeing those around me get stuck with needles and yet another surgically enhanced (alright, repaired, no wolverine stories here) with pins and screws, i got thinking about pain, the kind we are handed and the kind we bring on ourselves.

Pain can be a great thing (no, this is not some S&M fetish thing). Pain reminds us that we are still alive. If we can still feel pain it's not too late, it's not over. It means we're still alive and kicking. Unlike mental or emotional pain physical pain is black and white. 'That needle is poking me, that's why i hurt'. 'That scar shows where i was cut with a scalpel and metal was bolted to my bones'. You know the source. It's clear, it's simple, even if it still hurts like a mutherfucker.

Maybe this is part of the reason i love skateboarding as much as i do. It regularly bumps one around enough to remind them that they are respirating, fragile little critters. Sometimes we all need to be reminded how valuable life is, what a precious thing it is, and how little time we really have here. Sometimes pain sidelines me, but most of the time it kicks my ass off the couch and makes me get busy living. It may keep me from doing what i would like to be doing, but it keeps me doing things... anything... just to do something... just to make sure i'm still alive. For that, i am thankful for the pain.