Tales of my tailbone
October 31, 2007 by Organic Mama
Sitting here, I am considering the variety of things I will write about for this upcoming NaBloPoMo marathon that, hello!, starts tomorrow. Ideas have been swirling and I am tremendously excited.. However, what’s been on mind MOST lately?
My butt.
A friend of ours in Ottawa actually fractured her tailbone and was virtually incapacitated for nearly a year afterward, whereas I, in comparison, have merely bruised mine (most aggressively). My coccyx is healing - due in large part to the “ass pillow” my darling husband brought home for me and on which I sit. Shame and embarrassment have been replaced now by my firm desire to sit comfortably, without my damn tailbone coming into contact with any hard surfaces. I have been standing a great deal these past three weeks since I smashed that itty bitty bone, leaning nonchalantly on desks while I saunter around my classroom, but now I wanna sit and I don’t care how ridiculous I look, schlepping around and sitting upon that blue latex pillow (which, incidentally, vibrates).
I never considered how much an injury to that selfsame bone could alter my life, but it has. And the timing sucks big rocks. Just as I was about to embark on a new regimen of exercise, BAM! and out of the game I was thrown. That appallingly bad timing got me thinking how emblematic it was for me to get sidelined when I had placed movement - in this case physical - at the top of my agenda. Just before I injured myself (on an upturned seatbelt receptacle), I had come to realize that I was completely stuck in a number of carefully constructed and tastefully decorated RUTS in my life, places where movement and momentum fizzled and tanked. My MO? I’d start something enthusiastically and I’d abandon the project soon after I’d begun; I’d begin exercising and ENJOY it, and then stop, or I’d start reading something I wanted to read that required thought and application of critical thinking and put it down, sucking back the effort and energy, negligible that it was, to stay unengaged. Aggressively unengaged.
With the landscape of my various non-movement comfort zones before me, I was resolved to engage some self-discipline and get my butt in gear, dammit! It was time and I was fed up, or so I thought. I think the Universe showed me, in preventing me from significant physical movement, how deeply my heels are planted in my life and how that non-movement informs so much of my life. I believe I have just been served one of those figurative and necessary two-by-fours across the side of my head meant as a jolt to wake the fuck up.
What a pain in the ass.
I am continually amazed by the interdependent nature of our bodies. You wouldn’t think that an elbow or a pinkie or a coccyx would made life so difficult but since every single bone is connected to another bone and so on and so on any little thing is a bitch and it recalibrates everything else which can cause other problems. Good luck getting your ass back in shape.
I really AM sorry that you’ve not been feeling well. Here’s hoping that the pillows help…
Kizz, it’s astonishing how many decisions my tailbone makes for me! Thanks for the good wishes.
Chili - the pillow is getting the job done, which is fabulous. And ridiculous, but whatever.
Would you please host the image on your own site to reduce my bandwidth? It would really help me, thank you.
Yes, Mal, I will. Sorry for any inconvenience.
No sweat. I like reading your stuff and I’m sorry you busted your tailbone. As you know, I can relate! Rock the coccyx cushion!
[...] the tables in front of the stairs to the cafe. I still have a (insert sulfurous invective here) tailbone injury and so I am still given to perching on one cheek, or leaning on one hip in order to sit for [...]