Back Pain

Writing Club

August 13, 2013

All I remember is that I was really, really angry and then at some point when I calmed down, I realized how much my back really hurt.  Hurt so bad that I couldn’t straighten.  I was sound and mobile and then I wasn’t.  The pain was so bad it was as if someone stuck a hot poker right into my spine.  My spine was bent like a pipe cleaner, leaning sharply to the right just like my sad state of mind made manifest.  

Just before, I had been brewing how I was a prisoner to my own circumstances.  Stuck in my house at the kitchen table measuring and cutting the hem of my Aunt Helena’s perfectly pink polka dotted dress on a boldly bright summer’s day due to obligations.  Obligations to my children and their constant demand to keep them occupied during the summer break with structured fun-filled activities in the absence of school and it’s schedule.  Obligations to maintain the house while my husband was away once again on a business trip for the entire week and to top it off knowing that I had only a couple hours to finish hemming Aunt Helena’s dress and whip together a baby quilt for Jolene's shower before we needed to head into town for Kieran's karate class.  

Who cared that I longed to be at that glistening waterside I could see just outside my window.  No one.  That is it.  My meaning in life to fill in the gaps of others needs, to insure a smooth flow in our house and in my husband’s business.  

Smooth flow, not what the bones in my back were doing right now nor what my nerves were conducting presently.  It was more like a prolonged electrocution with each step to the couch.  But I was filled with more resolve than that, I would not cede.  There were promises to keep. The dress would be finished come hell or high water because it would be hell at my Aunt Helena and Uncle George’s place if I arrived without an unfinished dress, I would nicely be told how much more efficient I could be if I just deligated, to whom, I have no idea, or perhaps planned ahead.  

I made it up the two flights of stairs to sit ever so carefully at my sewing machine, leaning just forward just ever so slightly to put the fire out that seared up my back.  Tediously, I turned the edge of the fabric under around once and then twice to create a clean narrow hem.  With gritted teeth I stood so I could checked my work.  It was done and so was I.  The dress fell beautifully straight, unlike my spine.  Aunt Helena would be happy.  One relief.  I laid it carefully over my red leather reading chair and lay down on the floor willing the pain to go away.