Neck Grief

Today I had a massage, and before you judge me, I judge me too. However, I signed up for this massage membership in a very low point emotionally, and it was one of my steps toward health. Although I feel embarrassed when I mention it (the frivolity of it!), today reminded me of why I signed up.

Every time I go in, I'm asked the same basic questions about what I need in the massage that day. Every time I go in, my answers are nearly identical. Yes, full body- but spend more time on my back, shoulders, and neck. Pressure? Hard. How do I want to feel? Relaxed.

I actually tried to think of a different word for how I wanted to feel, because relaxed seemed lazy. I want the relaxation to be the result of muscles forced into submission. Luckily my massage therapist understands what I mean. She is not afraid to hurt me. I know the places that will hurt, and I try to breathe into it. I'm not going to lie, I try to pretend it doesn't hurt as much as it does because I don't want her to back off on the pressure. 

Today, I asked her to focus on my neck and shoulders especially, because I felt like they weren't even my own. I didn't explain it well to her. What I wanted to say was that I wished they weren't my own. I have often wished this. That I could somehow trade them out for a new set. That I could hold my head up without constant stretching and adjusting. I want to feel like my head isn't supported by a janky set of sticks duct taped together and ready to collapse at any moment. In my mind I thought: if you can make me not feel like trading it out, you will have performed a miracle.

The complete focus on the neck didn't happen until the very end of the massage, so by then I had been lulled into a peace of silence and introspection. I was even writing a little dialogue scene for my book in my head. There had definitely been some painful muscle work, but I had expected it. She started working on the tendons around my shoulders that connect to the neck, painful but bearable. Then she moved on to my actual neck, focusing first on one side, then on the other. She held pressure points for what felt like a painful eternity. I felt my neck sort of twitch and release. It hurt. Like woah. 

Then I sort of had one of those kind of out-of-body experiences. Not a creepy one. I just sort of panned back and looked at my neck with such sympathy. I thought, God- she's been through a lot. And just naming that gave me this wave of grief. But the kind that you get when you finally think or say out loud something that has been buried within you. It was a release. 

I have had three spinal surgeries and my neck will forever be jacked up. I do not feel things like I should, and my body does weird stuff if I sit or lean or whatever for too long. Spinal injuries are really, really weird. You know how if you break your ankle, it's never really the same and you're more likely to do something to it later because of that crack in the strength of the bone? Spinal injuries are like that, except it manifests in the weirdest ways, and doesn't always make sense, and doesn't have a specific cure or treatment. 

I may be wrong (but certainly not alone) but I tend to ignore the majority of my spinal issues. Because if I went to the doctor for every tingling sensation or weird symptom (like my hand curls up involuntarily sometimes, mostly when I've leaned a certain way)- I would be forever at the doctor and the only solution they would have is surgery- which would bring a new set of weird possible consequences. Spinal injury for me is deciding what set of symptoms you can handle. If it is too painful or too life-inhibiting, then you might be able to trade a few cards of symptoms for different few cards that are a little less annoying- but you can't fold. You can't trade in your neck for a new one. Some can only trade in twos and threes for fours and sevens. I think as far as spinal injuries, I've got at least a pair in my hand- it's not so bad. 

That's another thing about spinal injuries. They can be catastrophic, searing pain. So even when I feel weird and like my body will never be fully functional (and never knowing if something is related to the injury or something else), I still think "it could be so much worse." I think that mentality of comparison has been helpful sometimes for me to keep in perspective my quality of life. But today, as I released that grief for my neck, I realized that maybe I should have given myself a little space to grieve. 

Of course, it's hard to even know or name what you are grieving. I don't even remember what it felt like to be able to put earrings in my ear without looking, or to clasp the necklace without standing in front of a mirror. I don't remember what it was like to feel the fine texture of something. I do remember being able to do a back bend without much effort, curving my back and neck into a perfect U shape. I remember doing back dives into the pool, landing as well as a forward dive. I remember doing neck stretches in my PE class where my head would touch my shoulder. I kinda remember not having scars. But in that moment, when I felt the acute pain in my neck, I felt the grief. I felt love for my neck rather than anger. I forgave it for giving me so much trouble and felt sympathy for all the trouble it had been through. And now I'm thinking, I am thankful for the courage it has to hold itself together and heal as well as it has. 

I know I'm talking about my neck as if it is a separate thing, or even person. I don't why I do this or why it helps. But it does. It gives me space between me the part of me that causes me grief. Enough space I guess, to give grace. And then I can reclaim my neck as mine- painful and graceful- and continue to get massages. Because my neck, she's been through a lot, and even if I feel silly getting a massage, my neck could use a little love.