New Pain and Old Fear

Yesterday we were in so much pain; most of it was new physical pain this time, as we endured a fresh revolt of our body against itself. This insurgence began on Thursday evening, while Fabulous People and The Pup were over for our usual Thursday night #TeamAwesome Superhero debriefing.

There is a part of us that feels bad about The Pups involvement in our life during these Thursday night affairs; you see, he doesn’t know about our existence, our mental ailments, this blog. His association with us became strong at a time when we were forcing The Other Girl out of our life, and so he only knew her; but he seems to like Us.

The Pup has been placed in our life for a reason, we figure. He is a symbol of the finale of TOG’s life. As we sit with him each Thursday evening we are mostly in awe at his innocence, his sweetness, how absolutely perfect he is for the girl we could have been, if not for the hands of so many others; and how much we only want our Fantastic New Addition (FNA), the love of our adult life, in his complete oppositeness.

We want to address one small subject here, maybe within a few sentences, the bulk of which will someday be a post of its own. Being that we are who we are, not comfortable with most people being in our physical space during huge stretches, being cynical about the world, for obvious reasons; it is very difficult for us to imagine a future with a romantic relationship. Our life has recently erased possibilities, and desires, for the touch of just anyone in a romantic/sexual context; it’s something we knew going into the New Year, and The Pup is simply a symbol of the impossible reality that our life has become.

The Other Girl had had quite the crush on The Pup back in October when she first met him; despite the fact he is so young. She used to joke with Fabulous People about “landing” him, and referenced additional TOGisms in regard to corrupting the young thing - she was an all around floozy. She’d even been given instructions on destroying him by the man we love. Luckily, we intervened before it was too late, crushed her and killed her with a high heel, before she could cause collateral damage.

The Pup is simply a friend, as mentioned in a prior posting:

It's interesting, our little crime fighting team. The Pup is just a young thing of 21 (or is it 23?) years, 10 years our junior; and Fabulous People are 17 and 40. Despite all of our vast age ranges we get along like, well, like peas and carrots...and onions.  Yeah. Those go well together. (peas and carrots, we are suddenly struck with more memories of our Forrest)

We only hope The Pup doesn’t develop a crush on us, as men around us tend to do (insert a joke all you want about how men love a “crazy” girl), particularly ones we don’t want – we’ve even, recently, elevated to getting hit on by deaf men; it’s disconcerting. So, we are very careful around The Pup for fear we might accidentally eat his soul, if we let him too close.

This particular Thursday evening, the meeting of the #TeamAwesome Superheros got odder than The Pups general clueless aura. 

Each week we discuss life, our careers, painting, and arts, we talk about food and whatever subject matter comes up. The Pup usually sits, busying himself with whatever distraction is available, and listens while Fabulous People talk with Us about things that are going on in our life, in our head, in an obscure fashion as to not reveal too much - and he never asks a question. When we laugh and giggle about our Team, referencing him openly as “The Pup”, he looks on in contentment, clueless, but happy, to be part of whatever Superhero Team we say he is a part of; while we all make funny tin foil hats and take pictures to share with Our Twitter Followers, and Our amazing #TeamAwesome; wanting to show the other side of who We are – not just the angry, bitter, yet witty, side that is constantly in pain; the side we show nearly every day in 140 characters at a time.

Out of sheer intolerable pain all day Thursday, we asked The Pup, for the first time, if he could “do us a solid”, and rub our neck and shoulders. He obliged, as a nice young man such as himself would. It may not have been 20 minutes following the completion of the luxurious hour long massage he provided, when all of a sudden we were overcome with more pain than we knew existed, surging from our knees to our ankles, in both legs.

As we laid on the floor, writhing in pain, as it increased in severity, we cried and sobbed, asking Fabulous People what this was, this pain we had never experienced. Turns out it was simply our  very first shin splits, in both legs at once – in tandem with charlie horses/cramps in our feet. 

As you know, we can take a hell of a lot of pain because of physical conditions that are the remainder of the near fatal car accident. This pain was new and terrible and we gripped the sofa, twisting, squirming, and covering our face from the shame of having people witness our uncontrollable response; scared…and more than once thinking, “oh my god, we better not pee our pants” (it’s okay, you can laugh at that), as one of the Fabulous People grabbed their iPhone to search for methods to ease the leg pain, looks of concern flashing across her beautiful face.

For anyone who experiences shin splits, the best thing to do is as follows.

1.  Lay on your back with your legs elevated
2. Apply heat
3. Massage if able, or have someone else do it; in this case Fabulous People…who needs a unique indicator at some point. They come as a team, that’s why they are referred to as such.

So, after about 20 minutes of screaming, and sobbing, and begging the answer: “why does our body hate us, what have we done to deserve this?”, the pain eased; but the discomfort and the threat remained beneath the surface, reappearing in small waves all the way into this Saturday morning, where we now sit completing this entry, which we had started on Thursday night.

This event, in the midst of our tin foil hat making session of the #TeamAwesome Superhero meeting (you have to wear them around Frank, you know - JOKE), gave rise to our curiosity of The Pup and his presence - doing for us what he can, even though he has no clue as to what we and Fabulous People are ever talking about, and only a slight clue as to the pain we experience; having heard the story for the first time, of why we are in pain so much of the time. The thing is, The Pup is smart, wicked funny, witty as hell; even though mini-Fabulous Person would chide him that evening, saying, “You’re the chump Tom Sawyer paid to paint the fence”. Making us giggle, of course.

We don’t know if he’s found this blog, and read it – we’ve certainly openly referenced it during the teams visit, and if we were him, curiosity would have had us on Google weeks ago.

We wrapped up the party, The Pup inquiring as to the time, and we responded, “It’s 9:45”.
The Pup asked us to repeat, so we returned with, “It’s 9:45. You know, like 9:30...only 15 minutes later.” And we smiled as we heard a Fabulous Person giggle from behind the bathroom door, reminding us if it weren’t for this little group of three, we don’t know where our life would be; we don’t even want to contemplate the thought – and that makes us scared to reveal our self to the young, unsuspecting Pup.

Source: http://xkcd.com/46/

Pictures of the tin foil creations by Fabulous People and The Pup:

The #TeamAwesome Superhero Stealth Plane

From Left to Right: The Pup, Fabulous Person and Fabulous Person Jr.