The Climb

Some days, I feel about eighty years old.

Not in my mind, obviously - I'd like to think that in the unfortunate event that I reach eighty, I'll know a great deal more than I do now - but in my legs. I live on the third floor of our teeny-tiny, five-person apartment, and when you feel as old as I do, getting up those stairs after a day of lectures that make you want to die (it's that fiction paper! I knew it would be the end of me) is not an easy feat.

Take heed, athletes! Turns out spending your formative years underwater, in a weights room, on a four-inch wide beam and hanging from a pair of uneven bars isn't so great for you once you reach 24 (I know, I'm not 24 yet, but that's kind of past the point). There's being active, and then there's stupidity. I fall into the latter category.

Before Worlds last year, I was putting in fifty-hour training weeks. Every week. For months on end. I then went from full-time training to full-time dancing, whilst under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol, in town. It's not ideal, as I've recently discovered. Your body doesn't forget behaviour like that, people! It remembers! It repays you when you move into a three-storey house!

Admittedly, there are upsides. I'm not sure why, but I've recently (meaning: in the last two days) mastered the art of staying awake all day, and sleeping a little bit at night! It's only taken my whole life. Getting up to live, not work out, at 7am is a strange feeling. So is having inexplicable sore arms that I can no longer stretch because they literally NEVER get warmed up. I haven't exercised in forever.

I'm beginning to wonder if the muscle soreness is in part due to the almost-fatal (that's a self-appointed assessment and may not be all that accurate) fall down the stairs I had two days ago, which I managed to land headfirst. Seriously, landing ANY other way than headfirst would have been hugely preferable. Unfortunately, it was not to be - I not only crashed into the side of my skull, but the rest of my once tiny, now not-so-tiny body landed ON TOP of my head. Yeah, man. I had a pretty extreme fall. Of course, I lost consciousness and gave myself a concussion, carpet burns (including one on the back of my ear, that my hair now sticks to, which is ideal) and possibly some ruptured internal organs. I'm co-ordinated.

I will not let this dampen my year! Concussions go away. Bruises and internal organs heal. So do burnt ears. If there's anything that's going to destroy me, it's going to be that damn fiction paper.

New goal for the year: to successfully climb each flight of stairs every day. I don't like my chances.