Ouch.

Sometimes, pain is good.

Sometimes you need to feel the hurt. Sometimes, it gets you moving in another direction.

Sometimes.

And sometimes, you need to allow yourself to slide into that mire; let pain surround you and engulf you for a little while. Cry a little, right? Lament. Curse your bad luck or bad back or whatever–

I’m indulging.

Found the above photograph on Wikimedia Commons and thought, What the hell, let’s write ourselves a little post about embracing the pain, sucking it up; let those hot needles poke a little bit, maybe draw a little blood, shut your eyes and FEEL IT, and then. . .

And then, step back and give yourself a pat on one because you survived, dammit. Maybe a little residual pain there, but you most definitely made it. You survived, lived to face another day, maybe tell another tale; maybe even embellish it a little bit, give your sob-story a bit more oomph–

I woke in pain this morning–physical pain–the kind that grips your lumbar region tight and starts wrenching, dull ache getting stronger by the second and then, sharp pangs crackling down both legs like cruel lightning, jabbing thigh and knee, big toe, no rhyme or reason to it–

So I took my pill and waited. On my couch, petting my cat. Waited for the pain to ease, tried not to think about it and finally, finally, I felt it slipping away, sidling back to that dark place.

Let it be. That’s my motto. Let it marshall its forces again, as I know it will. As it surely must. I care not, because I survived and no matter what, no matter when those needles poke me again, when that damn ache forces me to scramble for meds and a decent chair again, I’ll come through it, if not unscathed, then at least, unscarred.

Sitting out here now under my apple tree and I know I have get up pretty soon because it’s coming, no doubt about that but first, I’m thinking about two novels I’ve written. I reread both this past week simultaneously, finished both within the same hour, teared up at the end of each and it pained me to think of those characters but it was a good pain, because I know both novels had to end as they did.

Today, I worked on another novel of mine, got up to page 131 but who’s counting. Not me. I was watching a bunny slip through our chain link fence and hop right up to me, watch me for a minute before grooming his sweet little self and meanwhile, a Downy Woodpecker latched onto the trunk of our Rose of Sharon bush and started hammering away; the same bush my Eastern Black Swallowtail rested upon yesterday, just for a moment, after emerging from his chrysalis; before flying away. And to my left, a crazy black squirrel hurled itself onto the trunk of our apple tree, gnawed an apple from its stem and plopped down on a low branch, munching and watching me and in that moment, you know something?

I felt no pain at all.