42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

I did sleep, but it took a while.

I couldn’t lie down straight. I couldn’t get my legs to be comfortable. I could screw them up into my body, but then there was still a pressure. And then there was the question of what to do with my arms. My arms hurt.

I did something stupid.

I decided to go to aqua aerobics the day after getting my ass beaten by the personal trainer. Before going to this hourlong class, I was sore but fine. I was still able to dress myself and walk straight.

I thought aqua would be something easy, low impact and fun. Probably slow paced. Was I wrong.

I got my ass kicked by a bunch of old ladies.

Yes, I love water now. I love swimming. As with most things that require coordination, I don’t do it well. But I give it a try.’

And the instructor for the aqua class cornered me and Heather and told us to give it a try. So we did. Though Heather kept saying, don’t do it, don’t do it. But I did.

I think the class would’ve been fine without my constant muscle ache, or the fact one of my legs was cramping a lot. Heather and I were the youngest people in the pool by about 15 years, if I want to be generous. With the exception of the instructor, who was not in the pool, and probably 5 years younger than us. There were a couple of old men, but one of them only stayed for 15 minutes. The other, a great barrel of a man, wore a t-shirt over the bulk of his belly.

And the rest of them were old or middle-middle-aged ladies. They chatted like friends, and joked with the instructor. All these women were way too peppy for 9 in the morning.

I also felt like a failure. The instructor had cornered me a couple of days ago, and I felt obligated to try it out. But now I could see her looking at me (even if she wasn’t) and seeing a 31-year-old confused and foundering and stopping frequently to pull down the top half of her halter-top bathing suit. Note to self: Why did my old one-piece suit have to die just as I needed it? Do NOT wear a two-piece suit when there is a lot of jumping up and down.

The instructor also went really fast. I thought she’d be a little kinder to the old ladies. I also felt as if I owed some sort of explanation, so I could excuse myself. I had my ass kicked by the personal trainer yesterday. But no opportunity came up to use my excuse.

I’d love to go back. But it’s going to have to be when I don’t hurt like death. And now I’m kind of embarrassed.

Anyway, getting back to the deathly hurt…

I got out of the pool, and by the time I was dressed and back in the car, I could feel my body seizing up. Eventually, the tops of my thighs hurt so bad I couldn’t walk straight. I tried stretches. I tried lying down.

Sitting, I was more or less OK as long as I didn’t have to leave my chair. I went to work and hobbled around like an old lady, though probably not one that had been in aqua class. Those women are tough!

Then I felt like an idiot, explaining myself to everyone. “What happened to you? Is it your back?”

And then I had to explain, in further embarrassment, that I am an idiot that overdid it, despite caution otherwise, and that I had my ass kicked by a bunch of old ladies.

Sigh.

And then I went home in pain. Toward the last couple of hours of my shift, I hurt so much I was nauseous. I just wanted to go home.

I tried to watch TV for a while, and found that if I sat a certain way, I could ignore most of the pain. But then I was tired and wanted to sleep.

So then I had to arrange myself carefully, and that still wasn’t enough. Eventually, I just conked out from pain and exhaustion.

Thankfully, sometime in the night, the pain in my legs eased enough that I can walk upright now. But it was a struggle to lift my arms high enough to shampoo my head, so I skipped the conditioner. Pulling my hair up in a ponytail sucked too, but I just worked past the pain.

And then I had the emotional pain to deal with, which I’ll write about in my next post.