Pains in the Night

It is almost midnight here, and I should be finalizing lesson plans for tomorrow.  Better yet, I should already be in bed.  I'll regret staying up this late when my alarm clock starts beeping tomorrow.  At work I will probably have to down a 5-Hour Energy Shot, that wonderful nectar of schoolteachers everywhere.  But I am in pain, and I will not be able to sleep until it quits hurting.      

I have lived with pain for a long time.  In 2009 I was diagnosed with costochondritis, and the spring before that I was on crutches a couple of months.  I have had bad knees my entire life, I've damaged both rotator cuffs, and there's a very real possibility that I have arthritis--as a 23-year-old!  I don't remember what it's like to not have a little pain somewhere in my body.  On some days I can hardly walk because my entire left side is stiff.  On others I cannot get a deep breath because the cartilage in my chest is swollen.  I doubt there is much I can do about it.  There is no cure for costochondritis, and the best you can do is take some anti-inflamatories and snuggle up with a heat pad.  

But the physical aches and pains aren't the only things keeping me awake tonight.  My body is not the only thing that's weary.

My mind and spirit are exhausted.  I knew that my first year of teaching would be an enormous undertaking, but I did not expect the constant loneliness that has plagued me here in Arkansas.  In college we are thrown into environments in which it is relatively easy to make friends.  It is not like that in the workplace.  Most of my coworkers are considerably older than me, and I never see the few who are close to my age.  I have not lived here long enough to build a support network of any kind, and my family and friends are 1,200 miles away.  I have good days and bad days, and thankfully today was a good day.  Part of that was because I could show off something I made with my own hands.

I have been building a set of Mandalorian armor for the last two years.  It has undergone many, many changes since the early cardboard days, and it is almost finished--I only lack a back plate and some armor on my boots to cover the laces.  Tonight I armored up for the first time since July, and I was exhilarated by how wonderful it felt.  Suddenly the simple music teacher was gone.  In her place was an invincible, faceless warrior.

I have a need to create.  I think all humans do, in some form or another.  It is a byproduct of our own creation.  I am happiest when I am taking disparate elements and turning them into something new.  After two months I finally have the tools to do that again, and as soon as I get my new apartment in order I will be making cards, starting new scrapbooks, and finishing up my armor.

The largest pain I've had to deal with is the constant loneliness, but right under that I have suffered spiritually because I could not make anything new.  Now I can.  And I am hoping that this creation therapy will soothe all the pains...because I truly am exhausted!