In Spite Of

Week Two of Sword Fight Summer Camp has ended.

The lessons are insightful, the instructors are an excellent blend of patient and inspirational, and my fellow students meet every challenge with playful dedication. But it hurts.

My struggle with my weight has been a perpetual part of my story, and will probably continue for the rest of my days. My days spent in the Chicago burlesque scene have helped me to accept my body’s appearance; unlike public school, no one is making fun of me for being fat. Not to my face, anyway. Not that I can tell. I still don’t like the way I look in the mirror, but these days that’s all about me. I don’t carry that over into what other people probably think of me.

But it’s still having a negative effect. My legs can’t handle this kind of sustained strain and impact. My knees are giving out and my heels can’t handle flexing past ninety degrees. Stairs give me anxiety, and oddly, it’s worse going down than up. I have all the skills and knowledge for success, but I just cannot make my body go through some of these motions without crumpling in pain, like being jabbed by a one-inch diameter needle.

These are problems I developed many years and fifty pounds ago, and that’s all without even getting into my lower and upper back reuniting for a crippling reunion tour. The other night it took six hours to fall asleep because every time I rolled over I felt my shoulder blades clamp onto my spine like a vicious dog trying to snap a femur in half.

I’m not constantly despondent, but something always hurts. I’m tired of it. This isn’t pain born from fatigue and sore muscles, and it’s nothing to be solved with some Epsom salts and a bit of stretching. It’s just . . . part of who I am now. Like a scar.

The most fucked up part is that I don’t understand how I’m exercising 8 out of 12 hours and still getting fatter.

I am having fun in spite of the issues. I’m getting advice and personal connections to start aiming the trajectory of my career so that I can make this a permanent part of my life. Heh. Yeah, even with all of this complaining, it’s still worth going through it all so that I can keep pretending to slash, stab, whack and punch people.

At least it makes the pained reactions come from a place of truth.