I spent today with my friends Aaron and Kate. We were originally going to hang out on a river somewhere, but the weather didn’t cooperate. So instead we ended up with several other friends and acquaintances eating pizza and drinking Bloody Marys, and then later eating Mexican food and drinking margaritas. Y’all, this was an all-day affair, and I can’t tell you how currently stuffed I am. Stuffed with bad decisions. Seriously, I just got home thirty minutes ago, and my stomach is still cramping. I keep apologizing to my body. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just got carried away.

I just said I made bad decisions, but the truth is that I needed today. Most days I’m so uptight. Even when I don’t have a schedule, I make one. I make myself read, make myself write. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy these things. I’m no martyr. Still, I push, push, push. But today there wasn’t any pushing, other than carbohydrates and liquids down my throat. Instead, there was just story-telling and laughter. Nothing serious. Everything lighthearted. Just what the doctor ordered.

Well, everything lighthearted–and TUMS.

I’ve mentioned before that my neck and shoulder have bothered me for months. In short, although they’re not awful, they are really tight and sore. I get a lot of headaches. I can’t tell you how frustrating this is, especially since I’ve tried SO MANY THINGS in an attempt to feel better. Alas, healing continues to be a journey. That being said, this morning I woke up with a stiff neck and tried something different. First, I did my best to relax. This is difficult to explain, but my default, even when lying down is often to hold a certain amount of tension. So I tried relaxing–letting go–ten percent, twenty percent. I kept telling myself, Just give in a little. Nothing bad is going to happen.

Next I tried having a conversation with my body. I‘m going to be spending time with friends today and would like to not get a headache. I’d like to just have fun. Would you mind letting go? Could we try that? And whereas the relaxing and the dialoguing (monologuing) weren’t lightening-flash, Hallelujah-chorus moments, I do think they helped. I went all afternoon and most the evening without even thinking about my neck or shoulders. So maybe my body listened. Eight hours without a undue tension. This is a big deal for me. Granted, I have some tension now, but still.

Things could be much worse.

Now it’s nine at night, and I’m feeling better. My insulin has kicked in, and I’m not cramping anymore. Even the tension in my neck I just mentioned has slacked off a bit. The “big lesson” for me today is that my body is a living, breathing, moving, intelligent thing. So often I think of any tension I carry, any problem I have, as this static, solid thing. As if my body were carved out of a piece of stone and were completely unwilling and unable to change. But more and more I’m learning that my body is something softer (and no, that’s not just because I eat pizza), something wiser, something that’s on my side. Something that’s willing to work with me if I’m willing to work with it.