In the last week, I've discovered that musical theatre withdrawal not only wreaks havoc on your emotional state, but also does a number on your body. In addition to feeling moody and reclusive, I've been in a massive amount of pain. My entire body aches - the joints, the parts in-between the joints - I've got it all covered. I must have been running on adrenaline for the past several weeks with all the singing and dancing and incredible rush you get from the audience.
And now, I have crashed. Not just any crash, but a graceful downward spiral pirouette, perfectly timed to a decending scale. Damn musical theatre. Why can't I just flop on the floor?
In trying to get my body back to normal, I've tried a few different things. First, there was yoga.
I've taken yoga classes before and always thought I was pretty good at it because I'm reasonably flexible. But this instructor is more about the "power" moves, not the lazy stretchy ones I adore. If there's one thing I don't have, it's the ability to lift my own body weight with various other parts of my body. Still, the class was going pretty well at the beginning of this month, pre-musical theatre withdrawal. The end of the show seemed to coincide with the instructor's need to have us be upside down for the remainder of the classes. We're suddenly doing headstands and handstands and I realize that I'm in over my head (literally). I spent the majority of the hour in child's pose, feeling like a failure and wanting to cry (is that why it's called child's pose??) The instructor came over to ask what was wrong and I mumbled something about withdrawal and being in pain. It's possible he now thinks I'm a drug addict.
I've discovered that walking into a room and saying the phrase, "Yoga is the devil" is a great conversation starter. I've already accepted the fact that my co-workers find me odd and slightly amusing, and now, everything I say just reinforces that notion. I walked into the lunchroom and called yoga the devil, which of course piqued their interest and a discussion on the topic.
Saviabella: [whining] Why does yoga have to be hard? I just want to do the kind of yoga where you lie on the ground.
Co-worker: You know, you could just do that on your own.
SB: If I have to do it on my own, I'll never do it. I want to pay someone to tell me to lie on the ground.
Okay, I admit that does sound pretty pathetic. But, mmmmm, corpse pose. My favourite pose, and I'm really good at it. Not only am I corpselicious, I'm also corpsicorpse, corpsulous and corpsetastic. And although the class ends in corpse pose and I get to drift in and out of consciousness for a whole ten minutes, I just couldn't do it today. I boycotted my last class.
My next foray into physical rejuvenation was physiotherapy. My jaw has been bothering me lately, to the point that I've been investigating braces and jaw surgery. My orthodontist sent me to a jaw physiotherapist, which I didn't even know existed until last week. The procedure consists of someone pushing on the parts of your jaw that hurt, and you trying not to scream "physiotherapy is the devil!!" It also involves the therapist putting rubber-gloved hands inside your mouth and attempting to pull your jaw out of your head. The best part is that when the hands come out, they leave trails of your own saliva all over your face. This just makes all the pain seem worthwhile.
Apparently, the musical theatre experience has created a huge amount of tension in my jaw and has made my TMJ problems worse. As the physiotherapist held my face, she kept telling me to stop clenching my jaw. "But it's not clenched," I said. Her response: "Oh dear." So, there will definitely be more pushing and tugging on my face in the next few weeks.
The third adventure of the week was massage therapy. This is possibly my favourite thing in the world. I mean, you get to lie in corpse pose for an hour and have a stranger rub you with oil - all at the same time! The person I go to is exceptionally talented. I just lie there, blissfully floating above my body while she irons out its kinks. I reenter my body from time to time to engage in conversations about how Tom Cruise is a psycho and how anorexic some of the Hollywood starlets are getting.
In my blissful state, I felt light and warmth and pleasure coursing through my body. I was in another place and time altogether. Then, I felt the therapist lean over and gently brush her lips against my forehead. She had never done this before, and I thought it was an odd addition to her repertoire. But I was so far gone, I didn't care.
A few seconds later, I realized that it wasn't her lips - she had gently put her arms around my head to straighten my neck. Man, I'm so glad I didn't pucker up.
