Cold is unpleasant. It tends to make me feel creaky, certainly does nothing to enhance performance in any area. Heat is soothing. For months I have been attempting to nurse my chronically aching hip back to health with intense heat. On particularly bad days I leave the heating pad in the microwave just a little bit longer than the instructions warn against, and I have the burn marks to prove it. It works, getting burned. At the very least, it makes you forget the other pain.
My last (and favorite) pad, the one with the snug straps that fit perfectly around me so I could wear the soft, moist, searing cushion as I wandered around the house studiously ignoring the aroma of burning flesh, fell prey to my overly zealous nuking. With a loud pop, it exploded, oozing a nasty smelling blue goo that made me wonder what kind of poison was seeping twice daily from the porous pad into my charred skin. I pitched it, and it was probably for the best. I returned to the old pad, the one I could at least hold up by gripping the end straps with one hand, the one that smells faintly of oatmeal when you heat it to the max. Oatmeal is good for you, and so, I assumed, must be the heating pad. Who cares if my hip kept getting worse? When dysfunction is a way of life, you already know that real therapy can take decades.It's not that I hadn't noticed, over time, a certain lack of payoff for the agony of third degree burns. And it's not that folks haven't mentioned to me, more than a few times, that I should ice the injury. It's just that old habits, even bad ones, die hard, and we all tend to have a few that we cling to for reasons no rational onlooker can decipher. In my defense, cold is unpleasant and heat is soothing and I am not a masochist. That's why I vacation in Mexico, not Alaska. And it's why my entire body stiffens in January, my otherwise uninjured shoulders cramping from huddling against the frigid air. It's why I walk around the house in sweats and a down jacket all winter as I try to be budget conscious and environmentally responsible (in that order) about gas.
Given my druthers, I'd sooner eat the toxic blue goo than hold ice against my body in the dead of winter. But, like most folks, I'm rarely given my druthers -- don't even know what they are -- and decided the other day that maybe the miracle icing remedy I had recommended to my daughter for pain in her feet was something I should take from preaching to practice. So, while she discovered the laying-on-of-hands type miracle of rolling a frozen water bottle back and forth under the arch of her foot, I improvised with a package of frozen peas and a large foam roller to try to strengthen the fraying muscle attachments in my midsection.
Praise God (or Bird's Eye) I'm cured! Not completely, but the difference is astounding. And Manny the blind puggle couldn't be more content to wait for the frozen pea pellets to explode out of the bag so he can leap face first into walls sniffing out the surprise treats. Hmm, carrots have Vitamin A, they're good for the eyes. Maybe some frozen ones....
Anyway, it's almost February and, though it's taken a while, we're finally in the deep freeze. I've been divorced for about a month and a half, and up until now things haven't seemed all that different, certainly not better. Maybe I just need to stop letting myself get burned and start looking at things differently. I'm definitely pitching the heating pads and stocking up on frozen vegetables. And there's something to be said about wearing ski pants instead of a bathing suit on vacation, especially at my age. Come to think of it, maybe the toilet in the ladies' room with the enthusiastic flusher was really just a bidet and I should appreciate the spritz.
I may like it hot, but I'm learning to change my tune. Baby it's cold outside, and I kind of like it.
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