The Po Show

My Old Back's Back

When I was a preteen and teenager, I had a seriously messed up back. Actually, I was messed up in ALL kinds of ways, but I had a constantly aching back. I started going to a chiropractor when I was 13, and continued till I graduated and went away to college. I always said that I couldn't wait til they started doing back replacements, because mine sucked.

My chiropractor, Irwin (the first person I ever knew who wore Birkenstocks, long before they went American mainstream), told me that I had the back of an 80 year old woman, and somewhere there was an 80 year old woman walking around with mine. (I went on to do some serious partying with Irwin, who was involved in the same community theater group I was. Kind of funny being a 16 year old partying with your holistic chiropractor. Only in Cali.) Later when I started dancing in earnest, my back got a lot better, so I think my bad back was really a product of being a sedentary bookworm who read for hours and hours and hours while sitting on the crappy old loveseat in my TV room (that is STILL there! I swear, I am buying my mother a new loveseat this summer!).

So my back has been okay, with intermittent pain, for all the years since. Actually, my shoulders are always REALLY tight. My sisters and I, that's where we hold our stress. On my 30th birthday, I got a massage and the masseuse working on my sciatic nerves asked if I had any upper back pain. I said sometimes, and she ran her hand up to my shoulders (rock hard as usual) and she breathed out, "JESUS!" Yeah, guess I was a little tight. But it's always been perfectly manageable, my back.

Till now. The last few days my back has really hurt, and I didn't do anything major like heavy lifting or anything. I think it's just been jacked up by sitting at the computer too much. How sad is that?

So today I decided I needed to try and do something about it. Now, you all know that the only exercise I like is done indoors (at least these days) and requires a partner, so this was a major event. I went ahead and got my Lilith Fair on, put on Sarah McLachlan, and started stretching. It's been so long since I did yoga that it would be comical if it wasn't so pathetic. NO balance, NO flexibility, NO endurance. But I soldiered on and did the best I could.

And dang me if I don't feel a WHOLE lot better now. Though I'm still waiting for that back replacement.