My Right Shoulder or Distracting Injury

I hurt my right should recently. It might be arthritis I acquired years ago when I would carry the Boy on my right hip when he was a toddler. When Claire-Adele was in kindergarten, she would have to catch the bus to school at 8:05 a.m. every morning, and we'd race to the corner to catch it. I ran up the hill schlepping a thirty pound kiddo every day for a year until I had a yoga instructor tell me to stop after I complained about my sore shoulder.

This sucks. When the Boy went to Wilderness therapy, my right heel was sore for no apparent reason. Maybe I wasn't stretching it properly. Anyhow, a few weeks into the Boy's treatment, the heel ache went away and I felt fine. In fact, I felt physically great, better than I had in years. I had no aches or pains, no stiffness. Nothing. I was flexible, limber, no limitations. I felt like I did in my twenties. It was awesome.

Now my right shoulder is sore again. I knew I was right handed, but I didn't know I how much I used my right arm versus my left. It aches when I

• Stretch to reach my alarm clock
• Get out of bed
• Close the toilet seat
• Wash my hair
• Towel dry my hair
• Get food out of the oven 
• Reach to get my coat out of the closet
• Vacuum
• Carry the dog because he is having trouble walking
• Open cabinets

So why now? Why did this old ache and injury come back to haunt me now? Is it something physical, like I might have banged it up when I fell skiing in December? Carrying the dog? Is the cold, damp weather aggravating it? Is one of my emotions trying to get my get my attention?

Or, did I have a distracting injury that prevented me from feeling this in the first place? Jack told me once that when someone is suffering from major physical trauma, like a broken femur or abdominal  injury, the pain is so great that the person might not notice their broken collar bone until a few days later when immediate and larger pain subsides. 

Was the emotional toll of the Boy being in therapy distracting me from my own body? 

Saturday I got a massage for my shoulder. This was not a peaceful, relaxing massage, but an almost  physical therapy level of torture massage where she was working out the knots and kinks.

"Moms can't rest until they know their kids are safe and taken care of," the masseuse said.

She is right. Airlines tell us to put our oxygen masks on first because they have to: not to take care of your kid first is counter-intuitive. It goes against nature.

Perhaps now the Boy is going better, my loose ends--the things I didn't take care of before--are becoming apparent. Maybe, now that I can stop emotionally carrying the Boy, and my shoulder is telling me it is okay to rest. The Boy will be okay. Now you need to take care of you.