You are preoccupied with your childhood. You don’t understand how the world works, but you know what you want to do during recess. And then, later at night, your legs start to hurt. You’re not sure specifically where, but it seems to be coming from your thighs. You become afraid, you don’t know why you’re hurting when you’re in your bed and everyone is asleep. You begin crying, helpless, you call out to your parents, and they come to your aid. They ask what happened, where it hurts, did you fall earlier? Your mother massages where it hurts until the pain passes and you fall back asleep. You wake up the next morning without any remembrance of the night before.
You are preoccupied with your everyday life. You wake up and daydream of the place where you would like to be. You have been living the same day everyday. The state of mind in which many of us are in is without intention of a conscious. You’re on autopilot everyday as you are clouded with thoughts of the outcome you so strongly desire. You go to work or school, you have a routine at home with your partner and loved ones. Everything in your life is still, until one day, very suddenly, you feel pain in your legs. You begin to feel where it’s coming from, you don’t remember falling or hurting yourself in that area. It comes from the back of your knees up to your thighs. The pain won’t let you concentrate in anything and it won’t let you sleep. Your comfort, your safe space, your person, has vanished without a warning and you are here without anyone to help you with these growing pains. You sit there motionless and distressed. You cry and feel your feelings, but no one is there to take the pain away for you like before. Throughout the discomfort, you realize that it is up to you to soothe your pain. You purchase a heating pad that you apply at night. You rub in the area that it hurts, at first it’s painful, but you’ve got nothing left, so you continue to massage your legs every day.
Every morning you wake up deprived from sleep, yet you still get out of bed and you stretch. You start where it hurts the most, the hamstring. You stand tall and look at the mirror, you bend over and grab the back of your ankles. You let it hurt, you let it do what it needs to do, you surrender to it. After a minute or so, you stretch your triceps and then a shoulder stretch. You end it with a lunge stretch and very suddenly, the pain diminishes. As you carry on every day with this routine, one day, you wake up without any pain in your legs! You can eat, you can sleep, you are motivated to move forward. You stop living the same day as you continue to heal yourself even if your legs do not hurt that day. Some days the pain comes back, but you are not shaken, you are ready, you are prepared. Because these types of growing pains will remain and you will realize that life is too short to live anywhere that is not here.
