Pain has been a constant companion lately.

I carry it with me like a feather boa that is wrapped around my throat tightly so that I cannot get air. Or perhaps it is like concrete that slowly drips down my legs to harden at my feet.

I am not sure why this is. It may be the weather, the time of year, the alignment of the planets. It may be divine intervention. It may be that my body is trying to turn against me.

I feel as if I am battling myself. As if my body was a terrain of rocky hills and low, supple valley’s. My arms stretch out on either side of me like rivers and my legs are the hard battle ground, covered in blood and the knots and roots of trees snaking their way through the grass.

This weekend was sheer agony. I don’t know what was causing it, don’t know what brought it on, but it was pain beyond anything I’ve felt before. Pain that I couldn’t even imagine.

It was constant all day Saturday and all day Sunday. It was like my body, my legs, decided that they did not want to participate in my plans, did not want to do what I wanted to do but instead remain stock still like a petrified tree, it’s roots turned to hardened muscle.

I could barley walk, barley stand. I had to sit often and any amount of walking was torture. Each step sent shoots of pain along the soles of my feet and hardened the already rock like muscles of my legs.

Even sitting was painful. I would sit to relieve the pain in my legs and feet, to give them a break of sorts. But when I sat down, the muscles in my buttocks and thigh’s shook and vibrated beneath me like the magic fingers in old hotel beds.

So I would stand to relieve the pain in my legs only to find that the muscles had hardened while I sat so I would sit again. I felt like I was attending Catholic church and all that was missing was the kneeling.

I have started wishing for one day without pain. Where I could take a step and not feel pain shooting up my calves. Where I could sit and feel nothing shaking beneath me. Where I could lie down and not have to wait for my back to stop spasming.

Some people wish for different coloured eyes, others for a new job, some for bigger breasts. Some may wish for more chocolate cake, another five minutes of sleep.

I wish for one day, one twenty four hour period, where I could be pain free.

I know that this is an unrealistic wish; that it can never be fulfilled. I know that pain is my constant companion, that it wraps itself around me so tightly that, sometimes, I feel like I cannot breathe.

But, because I am stubborn, I will fight my daily battle. I will wage war on my legs, my arms bending like water, my stomach a small hill to look down upon the battlement.

I will fight. I will wage my war.

And I will win.