Its strange that this week there were so many lessons but the major one was to not land on my knee, and for that its better had I been a mermaid and lived in water, for then the landing wouldn’t have mattered one bit. And the next lesson was seriously how to say no. They say we lose muscle mass as we age and now am petrified that its the no muscle that is losing strength. When they say build muscle looks like the neck rotator muscle needs building in my case that conveys a firm, yet hopefully polite (considering my RBF) no! But then the sheer need to prove myself or rather the ever optimistic belief that five years hence the anterior cruciate ligament would have healed, were two really dangerous premises that I ended up operating on, so much that it raised the question of me being operated on! A slippery slope for sure. So one is better off being a realist than an optimist in this world. The body has most cells that regenerate and heal and yet it has some that apparently don’t, but there is no harm in hoping and praying for a miracle. So while I light my diyas and find my Gods, am deciding that instead of pounding muscle in the gym, it is time to build completely my other muscles namely the tongue, the stomach, the neck and alongside building the quadraceps and the hamstrings wont be a gain, pun intended.
The joy of listening to my National level athlete flex his sports achievements and throw in a sneer about others not playing a sport, pulled out the competitive streak in me, possibly also a memory loss conveniently forgetting the doctors advise to not play high impact sport, well who would’ve thought Badminton is a high impact sport and also well the brain is firmly an organ and not a muscle, so nothing to build there, made me jump onto the court take a serve and in the lure of scoring a point jump to the nets. Alas, the pain, the twist, the swelling thereafter and the completely painful process all the same made be guilt trip myself for four days before summoning the Pollyanna in me, like seeing the sun after a storm. One surgeon pronounced surgery much to my chagrin, and while swearing off cardio for the rest of my life secretly praying, pleading to God that I wont fall to peer pressure in the future, even if the peer is the partner in question. So much so I pulled on my sweatshirt from the School of Planning and Architecture days, the years of first being an adult, the years where peer pressure did not so much as touch me, and hoping that the fabric memory lays its bit on me, days when I firmly said no, with not a care in the world, and didnt fall to peer pressure no matter the pascals or rascals. So if you meet me next and I say no, please, pretty please respect it, and you’d be doing me a huge favour in helping build a muscle that will take me over the next 62 years of my life, ofc assuming I’ll hit the century.
But then when I write this I realise, I was always immune to peer pressure but not sneer pressure. And thats how I put peer oops sneer pressure on my knee. God help me!!
P.S. Inspite of the public sneer I was polite enough to notify in private that synapse is actually a word, and thereby flexed my kindness muscle proving not all muscle needs building, some just magically appear in good faith!
Vedasri Siddamsetty 