Herself has recently begun attending sparring classes on Friday afternoons. The only person more astonished than I at this development is Herself, herself. If anyone had asked her, even six months ago, whether she would willingly subject herself to a sparring class, the answer would have been a stony silence accompanied by a look of incredulity. Yet now, she returns home Friday evenings quite satisfied, covered in perspiration and blossoming purple marks.
This past Sunday, I was lounging in the bedroom while Herself was patiently attempting to match socks in a massive laundry mountain. Offspring the first joined Herself, pen in hand, and began drawing grimaces on each of Herself’s visible bruises. Each face was progressively more intricate, and each varied in size in accordance with the magnitude of the contusion. We counted over a dozen; some were my size, while others were several times my diameter.
Sparring generates these many little wounds, and as we all are aware, can lead to greater ones. I know she has a significant fear of injury following The Great Ankle Debacle of 2008. She is not old, certainly, but she is not so very young; time and other afflictions have begun to creep into her joints, her balance, her flexibility. She knows this. Furthermore, Herself has always been one to approach life with an abundance of caution – a person who is uneasy with things new or different. Chary. One who flees, not confronts. Rather like a rodent but in human form.
Given all this, I was rather mystified by her attendance of the sparring class. So I asked Herself: Why?
Her response: “Because I can.”
Thus I learned: for her, a bruise is a gratifying sign that she is pushing her own physical and mental boundaries. She is stepping -- figuratively and literally -- outside of her comfort zone. Every ache is its own reward, for it demonstrates that she has faced her fears and her frailty, and she has endured. She has dominion over herself.
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I'm so very pround of Herself.
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