“…Prepare for war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near…beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say I am strong.”

- Joel 3:9-10 (KJV)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Earlier this summer, I suffered a painful injury to my shoulder. It wasn’t from lifting a heavy box, improper form in the weight room, or falling off a Divvy scooter (all of which seemed likelier).

It happened in my monthly dance class. It’s the same one I’ve been raving about if you’re friends with me, work with me, or live with me. Our teacher, Bobby, our fiercely talented group fitness instructor, whips together an incredibly well-choreographed 60-minute class. It’s far more advanced than, say, one with my background—of childhood ballet, competing once in Greek Week dance, parties at Sig Ep, and the occasional rowdy wedding—but Bobby does so well breaking it down (pun) for dancers of all skill levels that it feels accessible and welcome even for a newbie like me.

Delightfully, Bobby knows how to stage a production, one Cody Rigbsy would call “full-out with feeling.” He swaps wigs and outfits alike throughout class. By outfit change, of course, he strips off one article of clothing per song, so by the end you may find him in nothing but a long blonde wig and a neon orange Speedo. His personality is so infectious, his moves so passionate, his prances so sprightly—demanding we grab our kitties one moment and our titties the next, as he leaps about the room as a sexy little elf might—it’s surprisingly easy to get swept up in the sensuality of his class. Few people have opportunities to get so in touch with their bodies, their own self-sensuality. It’s what I admire so much about professional dancers: they carry their craft in every movement, every moment. The arch of their feet. The point of their toes. The curve of their fingers, their hands. The way they lift an arm, a leg. They know what their bodies can do. They are trained to be fluid, graceful, beautiful movers, and their confidence and self-assuredness are the natural effects that follow.

Perhaps that’s why dance class lights me up so much. It gives me a sense of self-awareness that’s hard to find elsewhere. It offers a cocktail of advantages: a rush of endorphins, a levity and laughing in a room full of women (and one gay man) that’s hard to replicate, the way it forces you to focus on your body, the practice of controlling your movements with intention and strength, the convenience of being offered at my gym. It’s only a matter of time before my friends are enticed enough from my sales pitches and begging to start to join me.

I digress. This can be another essay.

Such is the culture that Bobby cultivates—of inclusivity and community—that I find myself incredibly grateful for him. So, you see, in Music Video Cardio Dance, when Bobby instructs me to windmill my arms in tandem with hip thrusts and kicks, then I was going to windmill my arms in tandem with hip thrusts and kicks with every fiber of my being. I have drunk the Bobby Kool-Aid. What Bobby says, Taylor does.

But after many violent arms swings mid Brittany-themed choreo, suddenly a hot pain shot through my left shoulder. After attempting to keep up with even more ill-timed shoulder rotations, I backed off, focusing only on the footwork and keeping my arms as still as I could. I finished class, stayed afterward for the group selfie, and grabbed my stuff to walk home. As my workout high of endorphins and adrenaline slowly subsided, I hoisted my pink gym bag onto my shoulder, a thoughtless habit. But when I raised my arm to shoulder height, I felt that same searing white-hot pain rip through my arm, and I sucked in a sharp breath. Grimacing, I gingerly lowered my arm back down. Oh boy.

Having grown up playing soccer and basketball, I’d sprained my ankles like it was my paid profession, back and forth, left and right. I knew what a sprained ankle felt like (the sharp pain up my leg), what it sounded like (the distinct and audible pop), the ginger walk-off, the weeks of slow recovery. This, however, was entirely new to me. Like any first-time injury, learning what I was no longer capable of doing was a painful series of trial and error. After four miserable nights of gingerly tossing in bed to find a bearable sleeping position (biting my T-shirt to keep from crying out) and mornings of torturous gymnastics just to get dressed, Jake urged me to set up a virtual care visit. In a matter of minutes, I was seated at our kitchen island on Zoom with a PCP describing my symptoms and miming which movements triggered pain (cue Rascall Flatt’s “What Hurts the Most”).

“You’ve likely sustained a minor sprain,” he said, his thick brows furrowed. He ordered rest, ice, gentle stretching, and anything else that I found helpful. He also wrote me a prescription muscle relaxers to ease the tension surrounding the injury. If I saw no improvement after another four days, he recommended seeing a doc in person to have imaging done.

Thankfully, as if obediently, four days later my shoulder started improving. As it healed, I avoided tight clothes that required extra effort to pull on or off. I took ten days off from the gym. I iced it at home on the couch watching TV (a forgotten bag of broccoli in the freezer did the job). I learned which movements were downright unbearable (crossing my arm over my chest, for one) and did my best to remember not doing them. As soon as I un-learned the things I could no longer do, I started to get better. Two weeks later, I was well enough to participate in Chicago’s Faces of Fitness festival with a workout buddy, something I’d bought tickets for months earlier. It felt like a milestone worth celebrating: I was strong enough to (almost) feel like myself again. I was still strong, even in recovery.

In my more dire moments, though, wondering how badly I may have hurt myself, I began to fear the worst. I thought about those I knew with shoulder issues, the kind that seemed to plague them with a relentlessness that followed them forever, a never-ending loop of braces and icing and—gulp—surgery. For some, multiple surgeries. I didn’t want to be someone with a bum shoulder. Was it only a matter of time before I hurt it again ? What if I was doomed for re-injury for the rest of my life?

But Jake urged me not to let fear keep me from pushing myself to regain that strength. “As soon as your shoulder’s ready, you’ve got to start lifting weights again, even if you’re afraid to do it,” he said. He reminded me that when he threw his back out two summers ago (which he blames decidedly on Pure Barre, after much cajoling him to finally try it), he spent three months resting it. When he told his PT this, she pressed him to get back in the weight room. Just as she’d told him, he reminded me of the urgency to rebuild those muscles. “You don’t want that area to go soft,” he said. “You do want it strong enough to prevent getting injured again.”

Turns out, they were right. A lifetime of playing sports and keeping active has taught me bodily self-awareness. I know the difference between muscle fatigue, a cramp, or a sharp shooting pain, a signal that something is definitely not right. I know a sore muscle from an overextended one. But it took a new injury to appreciate what my body does for me, and what it needs from me. Injuries aren’t fun, but they do teach us our own limits and, eventually, when to start pushing them again. So over time, I gently tested my new limits with pushups, weights, and mobility, steadily increasing them at every opportunity.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In hindsight, I probably could have predicted this would happen. When my best friend asked why I’d disappeared from the dance floor at her wedding last fall, I answered meekly: “I pulled a back muscle.” One moment, Jake and I were cutting a rug to some Bruno Mars song or another; the next, I was shuffling slowly back to my seat, my breath hitched, my hand clutching my lower back. We laughed—how old were we, anyway? Eighty thirty bedtimes, back injuries? L-O-L! There’s a bonding element to lamenting with peers over our increasing fragility. But it’s no laughing matter when I can’t even laugh because my latest ailment du jour hurts too much.

The five-year period of my late twenties and early thirties has been a series of relearning my body. In a very sudden shift, I’ve had no choice but to adjust to a number of physiological changes. For one, I’ve become inflicted with terrible bloating, something many friends had lamented to me for years, but that I’d never experienced myself. One of my college girlfriends even kept an entirely separate collection of jeans for when she was on her period, which utterly bewildered me. Was it really possible to expand an entire pant size every single month…or was she exaggerating?

Turns out, I was wrong to dismiss her period jeans as proverbial. One night, after having a frozen cocktail out with friends—harmless, it seemed, when I did so the week before—my abdomen ballooned to such an extent that I felt like I’d swallowed a brick. No, a cinder block. Yes, I’d drank on an empty stomach, but it was one drink, something that might leave a minor pre-buzz warmth, if anything at all. But that night I practically waddled home from dinner, as if largely pregnant. With each step I took, the contents of my drink sloshed about uncomfortably in my stomach. I wondered in that moment if I’d ever feel relief again, as though some unidentified force sought to burst me open (disturbingly, I thought of the chestburster scene from Alien). Desperately, I called Jake to come pick me up. He said he would, but wouldn’t I start feeling better if I kept moving? Clutching my stomach, I agreed, but the walk home barely helped. When I finally made it home, immediately I sought answers, diving into an ocean of tips like ginger and hot tea. Overnight, there were now an avalanche of things to avoid, everything from fizzy beverages to cruciferous vegetables. I wondered what else I would have to give up, but if I could help it, I was determined to never feel that awful again.

These bloating episodes continued throughout the summer. Normally, I felt comfortable and confident in crop tops, proud of the abs I’d earned from working hard in the gym. But I started changing the way I dressed, not only to hide my stomach, but to avoid the discomfort of constricting it when it would inevitably swell again. I got rid of the unforgiving skinny jeans I’d been saving for fall in my closet, as wearing them had become insufferable. How did women wear corsets and girdles? Forget the passing out and cracked ribs…how did bloated bellies submit to these torture devices, when I could no longer even stomach (pun) skinny jeans? Plagued by frequent and prolonged stomach aches, I finally realized my tight leggings and workout clothes weren’t helping, so I began to limit how long I wore them. Beer, soda, and other carbonated drinks were now off the menu for me, as any fleeting pleasure I took from them was never worth the discomfort that followed. (When I read that coffee could be a culprit as well, I completely ignored that, because after all, I was trying to feel better, not lose my will to live.)

In an interview, Sam Smith described how he wished to spend his days in retirement: walking about his house wearing only kaftans, all day, every day. Now, I’m finding that I, too, share Sam Smith’s retirement dream, only I wish for it in the here and now. How I long to wear loose-fitting clothing every minute of every day, and not the Hudson jeans that are fabulous, but routinely rearrange my organs when I yank them on. I’m realizing that in a world in which so many women wrestle with bodily shame, I had silently insisted on doing the opposite. I have a great relationship with my body—not a perfect one, but I acknowledge the incredible work it does for me every day. And for as long as I’m able, I want to feel fabulous and proud in the clothes I put on every time I get dressed.

But my newfangled gut issues made this challenging. In a moment of frustration—one where I had to change out of the outfit I’d chosen that day because something I’d eaten, yet again, had caused my midsection to swell—I thought, This is so unfair. Having a flat stomach is part of who I am. As soon as I thought it, I wrinkled my nose at myself. Part of who I am? Was it possible that I had a good relationship with my body, on the condition that it did as it was told? To stay thin, flat-stomached, and obedient—regardless of what I did?

And while I’ve been active my whole life, I’d allowed a creeping habit of shirking the things you do to prevent injury. After all, how many ten-year-olds are out there predicting incoming rain because the ol’ knee keeps throbbing? Sprained ankles aside, I always bounced back quickly as a youngster. As a result, I’ve often treated stretching before and after workouts like an afterthought. Perhaps it’s because for years, I’ve had a coach yelling out stretches and warmups, or with some, the silent but implied fifteen minutes our team was expected to spend doing both. Now, it’s entirely my responsibility to factor this into my workouts, and if I’m honest…it doesn’t always happen. Okay, it rarely happens. But nowadays, I know that each time I skip it, I’m rolling the dice. Will today be the day my hamstring severs in two—the one that seizes as soon as I step on the treadmill? Will one go right after the other, like Dominoes (or ACLs)? Lately in workout classes, my hamstrings feel tight enough to snap like rubber in the freezer. This is new. It shouldn’t hurt to reach down and touch my toes…should it?

Perhaps most bizarrely, even certain things that I wear—things I have never once had to think about before—have begun restricting my breathing, so much so that I now have to limit or avoid wearing them altogether. After searching for literature on this, I actually did find a study linking sports bras to restricted, upper respiratory breathing, something associated with anxiety. A few years ago, I started experiencing difficulty breathing—that is, the sensation of being unable to quite get a full breath into my lungs. This began happening regularly. I blamed the stress of my job. I asked for a lesser workload and did my best to manage the mental pressures of my role.

Then I learned that this was actually a mild form of panic attacks—the sensation of being unable to take in a full inhale. Panic attacks? I’ve heard stories of what those were like, and I knew what I had wasn’t that bad. Those were for people with Anxiety. I didn’t want to be someone who had Anxiety. What I told people was that I “had anxious tendencies,” my euphamism for my periodic inability to fully relax, or taking a deep breath in and wondering how long it had been since my last one, or waking up at 3am several nights in a row over a [perceived] conflict and being unable to fall back asleep.

//////////////

I’m know I’m not old, but I am getting older. I’m reminded every time my stomach lurches an hour after eating pizza; every time I hop back into a rigorous activity I haven’t done in years, like it’s nothing, and I have to all but cancel my plans the next day to recover. The day after Jake and I played in his firm’s soccer tournament, I am a feeble figure confined to the couch, an ice pack on the massive bruise on my thigh, another on my knee, wondering how on earth I used to do this on a regular basis for the first two thirds of my life. I glance over at the pair of soccer cleats lying on the floor by the front door, the pair I’ve worn since high school. Both of them had fallen apart mid-tournament, splitting where the cleat met the sole, one after the other. I’d had to tape them back together to keep playing. I am thankful this wasn’t a realized metaphor for my own body (though given my soreness that day, it wasn’t a far cry).

And drinking the way I used to? Forget it. Gone were the glorious rip-roaring nights in college and my twenties, out with my friends, feeling invincible, as there would always be someone to grab drinks with, someone to flirt with, someone to drive us home at the end of the night. At twenty-two, I felt so dainty waking up after a late night out, thinking, gee, I’m quite thirsty, and traipse down to the dining hall in my slippers for some orange juice. Now, each night out seems to bring with it a new existential crisis the next morning. Now, we skip the giggly buzz and head straight to the aftermath, only times ten, plus one elephant sitting on my head. When I shuffle to the bathroom and look in the mirror, I see the Evil Witch from Snow White leering back at me: hunched, pale, sunken eyes, foul breath, and murderous intentions (but thankfully, without the warty nose). Once I surpass two glasses of wine, I am all but a felled tree—my mouth unbearably dry, my hands gripping my forehead—willing the headache, nausea, upset stomach, and self-loathing away. Beer now bloats me like an expired whale, the ones with those distended white bellies floating skyward like they do in those shark documentaries.

For a while, I met these changes to my body with mixed emotions: denial, bewilderment, resistance, frustration, resentment, sometimes anger. I felt attacked. Life had become a land mine of new obstacles to avoid. Had I known how things would eventually go, would I have chosen to eat more pizza, go out more, drink more, waste less time on mundane things like stretching? Would I have taken advantage of every bit of self-indulgence while I still could?

Eventually, though, I got sick of feeling sick and begrudgingly learned to accept them. As I started to approach these changes with curiosity, I read Quit Like a Woman, part story of a woman’s journey to sobriety, part critical lens of the alcohol industry. I realized that if I gave up alcohol altogether, that would be doing my body more favors than I could begin to fathom. I still choose to drink socially, but only occasionally - less than once a month or so. Given the reality of how deeply inundated drinking is in our culture, how gendered alcohol marketing is as it targets women (normalized by “wine nights” and “mommy juice”), and when you call it by its real name—ethanol—I’m reminded that society has normalized drinking a volatile, flammable chemical compound used in paint and gasoline.

Accepting and embracing all of these adjustments have also forced me to slow down—something I deeply resent when my default tendency is to careen through life like a helicopter in the wind. In the slowing down, I’ve realized that all my new things—stretching, journaling, thought logs, meditating, plant-based eating, breath work—are all highly effective. And they are also infuriatingly simple. But if they’re working, it does not matter how silly they are, or seem to me. If five minutes of meditating in the morning sets the intention of remembering my breath throughout the rest of my day, remembering to take a deep inhale at any given moment, instead of thinking psh, yeah right, I need to just. bloody. do. it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I grew up really loving comic books super heroes. It’s something my Dad and I enjoyed following together. Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s was a really exciting time, as we would eagerly await the release of each new Marvel or D.C. movie and go see it opening weekend. On my first trip to New York with my mom, I will never forget riding the train into the city, and one of the first things I saw hanging from one of the skyscrapers was a massive rendering of Spiderman flying through the air, shinning brilliantly bright red and blue in the sunrise, his hand outstretched to shoot his next web. It was actually a giant poster, celebrating the recent release of the 2002 film. But to me, a six-year-old, it felt like it was the real Spiderman. Would we catch a glimpse of him jumping between skyscrapers during our city visit that day?

I love everything about these heroes: the stories, the symbols, the characters, the duality of their double lives, even the villains. Did you know, for instance, that each of Batman’s villains is a caricature representing each challenge he must overcome? Joker, his mortality; Penguin, corruption. Fascinating.

Then there is Superman, the crown jewel of the D.C. Comic characters. When titling this essay, the concept of kryptonite came right away. Quick context: in the Superman comics’ storyline, kryptonite is a [fictional] crystalline radioactive substance indigenous to Superman’s home planet of Krypton. More importantly, it is deadly to Kryptonians—including Superman. In good health, Superman is, well, as super as ever—he can fly (sometimes fast enough to turn back time), bend steel with his bare hands, punch down walls, shoot lasers from his eyes, even take a cheeky peek through Lois Lane’s clothes using his X-ray vision (one of the best scenes ever). There are many things I enjoy about him. I love that he was cast by Henry Cavill. More endearingly, when my best friend met the cute new guy at a party, her first thought was This is Clark Kent. Her second? Taylor needs to meet him, and quickly pulled me over to introduce us. Tall, dark haired, handsome, and strong, my now husband is indeed the spitting image Clark Kent. He even sports the same signature black eyeglass frames.

But perhaps my favorite thing about Superman is that his character first appeared in April of 1938, offering hope to a readership in the throes of the Great Depression. At a time when ominous tensions were thick and rising in Europe and the American dream was far from reach for many American families, two young Jewish men in Ohio were crafting a character that would become a symbol of hope—and one of the most famous household names of all time. In the first issue released—and in many iterations since—Superman was depicted as a hero saving the mistreated (even taking down Hitler in the process).

However formidable he is on Earth, the moment Superman comes anywhere near kryptonite, it weakens/poisons/burns/maims/slowly kills him. In one storyline, it even splits his personality, creating in him an evil alter ego. (Think of how mold exposure can render us easily irritable…only way more extreme.) His enemies learn to weaponize it and use it against him. Like the haircut to Samsons’s strength, it is the one senseless thing that erodes his ability to do what he does best: save the day. It is his one area of weakness, and has fittingly evolved into a well-known metaphor.

Now, stuck home in quarantine, the printed results of my positive COVID test lying on the kitchen counter, I’m thinking a lot about kryptonite. I’m watching 1978 footage of Christopher Reeves’ Superman face to face with kryptonite, fear in his eyes as he stumbles away from the glowing green medallion dangling in Lex Luthor’s hand. He is desperate to distance himself from what is already rapidly zapping his strength. Having spent the past two days in my bathtub—afraid to leave it to brave the mercilessly frigid air of the outside world—I’d been zapped by a virus that left me wondering when my strength would return enough to leave the house, let alone return to the gym, my office, or any social plans.

And in my writing, I came across this brief piece: “Superman Needs Kryptonite”. The author reminds us that when heroes have weaknesses, they offer more to both their fans and even the hero themselves than one might see. “You do not have to be perfect to be great,” he writes, “you just have to keep getting up more often than everyone else.”

What if I came to view my new bodily have-nots of adulthood as my own kryptonite? I doubt Superman ever stomped his red boot (slippers? footsie pajamas?) in frustration and whined, “I never get to eat kryptonite anymore! Now it makes me SUPER bloated and it’s so annoying.” Or, “My buddies and I used to get smashed on kryptonite when we were in our twenties, with hardly any hangover. Not anymore! Adulthood sucks!!”

Maybe these things were always my kryptonite. But my body in its youth graciously swept away the repercussions, as I carried on my merry way. Now, I can no longer ignore the fact that they were never good for me to begin with. In fact, they keep me from being the most super version of myself. It wasn’t that I used to be impervious to these things and now no longer am; it’s that I now have a choice to embrace the things that actually make me feel my best. And now that I have, I find myself feeling something I wasn’t expecting: hope. I get the feeling that I’m turning the corner to greater things, simply by saying no to kryptonite.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The new things that have replaced the old things in helping me feel my best:

• Meditating, which reminds me to take deep breaths throughout the day

• Drinking water, which staves off headaches, among other things

• Eating vegetables, which are delicious and filling

• Stretching, which is both effortful and relaxing

• Lifting heavy weights, which torches body fat and calories, helps me sleep harder, makes me stronger, and helps me breathe more deeply and effectively throughout the day

• Giving fewer fucks, which keeps me from spiraling and maintains perspective (and my sanity)