When my body tells me so

I woke up yesterday morning with aches all over my body and I couldn’t really sleep because every turn and movement was achy. It felt weird, as though I had a really tough workout the day before or I have been punched all over or I have been involved in a bad accident.

But as far as I could remember, I did nothing of that and I was not involved in a bad accident. I felt groggy somehow. Every muscle movement was hard and I had no choice but to just rest for the day. I couldn’t move much because some sudden movements gave a sharp pain around my neck and head. It felt like fever but not really either. It just felt totally uncool.

I slept most part of the day and it was not until I perspired in my nap towards the evening that I felt slightly better. I guess it was fever after all, though when I touched my forehead, it didn’t feel feverish.

During the days of the past, when I was younger, I would be able to push myself to continue working, to continue moving, to complete what I needed to even when I was unwell.  I would tell myself that I was fine and most of the time, I could go on until my body told me otherwise.

It came a day when I was rushing for a dateline and the boss had asked for a presentation report. The slides were full of numbers, numbers that needed to be cross-checked with several sources, numbers that involved revenue numbers of losses and misses. I had to make sure the numbers were correct but it was just so hard with a heated head.

It was after working hours and I had brought work back home because I couldn’t finish it in the office. I reached home and I tried to hang on for as long as I could to check the numbers but after about half hour of finishing up the slides, I just couldn’t go on. I had wanted to recheck them but my body told me no.

I was heating up and I used the last bit of energy that I had to do a somewhat best possible check that I could. I managed to message the boss just before I had to lay flat on the couch and close my eyes. The boss called me in between to confirm some numbers but I apologized that I couldn’t help him then because my brain wasn’t functioning the way it was suppose to and I hung up.

My body told me that I needed to rest and no matter how hard I had wanted to keep my eyes opened, I couldn’t. I was in and out of sleep throughout the night and the next day. I still remembered the feeling then. I ignored all calls because I had no energy to answer them. Some things cannot be pushed.

When it comes to age, I used to think that age is just a number. But as I grew older, I realized the statement is so not true. It may be true when we are in our 20s and possibly 30s but the body starts to tell us otherwise. Nope, you are not getting any younger and age is not just a number when you get older.

The days of staying awake past midnight and worked until four in the morning was past me. Days of partying all night and then continue to go to the office at nine in the morning within the next few hours was gone. And I wouldn't want to do all that again anyway. My interests have changed.

I used to be able to do cross stitch the whole day, poking the big headed needle through tiny holes, making crosses with different colours of thread and transferring the patterns from paper to the cross stitch Aida cloth. Those tiny shapes of different kinds from a red paper with black marks.

There was once just some years back when I could work on a needle project every week and write about it. I could no longer do that. Now, I need to wear spectacles to see, too many years of screen time has taken its toll on my eyes. It is hard to continue to be in denial when the body tells me so.

I used to be able to go trekking and mountain climbing but now, I no longer feel like doing it because my body tells me so. My knee complains if I wear the wrong pair of shoes or move the wrong way. They no longer enjoy being pressured and because of that I prefer a quiet time at home, in front of the telly or in front of my laptop typing. Things have changed over the years. The body is no longer as tough as it used to and I need to listen to what my body tells me. I accept that my body no longer function and perform the way that it did twenty years ago.