aches and pains - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

The aches and pains I earn are the ones I grow strong from.

I can survive anything if I feel loved, even these pains that come to explode within, these silent hand grenades. With kindness I can make it, with compassion there is grace. And when you smile at me you are my heroine, my morphine, finer than any doctor can prescribe.

Though these pains come and go, I give to you only smiles because I want you to live. Thank me by having fun, remember me by laughing often, because that is what brings me comfort in these trials of age. When you remember me, send me your love, and I will return to you mine, though in truth it is always yours, always there for you. These pains may be an unwelcome guest, yet they can never master the beautiful soul, not mine, my love, nor yours.

I walk like my limbs don’t really belong to me and each step is a negotiation rather than an order. Everything hurts now. Every damn thing. I wince to cross the floor, heading to get Darwin's clothes but he runs to me and wraps his arms around my legs. I guess I’m not forgotten quite yet..I bend against the will of my joints to get down to his eye level and he looks at me wide eyed. I’m expecting a poke on the facial injury but instead he wraps his arms around my neck.

Pain is invisible, subjective and open dispute unless it is one's own pain. Aches are worse, always taken to be less then they are and hardly ever thought of without the possibility of the sufferer magnifying their woes. Sometimes I think the reaction a person has to another's pain tells more about that person than they'd like. Maybe it's just that they were never listened to as a kid, but no matter the cause they lean toward disbelief rather than empathy.

My affliction is genetic. I watched my grandmother suffer, then my mother. I wasn't sympathetic to either one. When they curled up and cried I scowled. They annoyed me with their whimpering. There was no dinner and the house was a mess, none of my friends had to put up with that. I didn't want to be the adult, the most able, the one to do every task my father didn't have the time for. I left them. I'm not proud of it. I walked out and found a love, started a new healthy family that was fun to be around. Now the aches and pains have started. I got the "genes" after all.

Six months ago I blamed it on the change in weather, my knuckles felt too large and like they didn't want to bend. Then I felt it in other joints with a twinge of pain, not enough to complain about but too much to ignore. I haven't seen the doc yet, I know more about this than she will. Today I was on my way to pack my son's lunch when the first crippling spasm hit, doubling me over. I couldn't help but cry out. As it subsided I heard a whimper escape my lips. It was my grandmother's voice, my mother's voice, surely not my own. I turned to see Jacob run in, half his hair spiked with gel and the other half not; his face was a picture of concern. I don't deserve his kindness, I never gave it myself, but I won't push him away...

Fiona fumbles the little white pill, her mind already clamouring for the pain relief to come. It isn't that her suffering is acute, more that it never leaves her unless she sleeps. Those pills are little trap doors into moments of bliss, a few hours of tranquility. Once she is at peace she takes her tea, her afternoon cake - her pleasures without them being tainted by pain.

Moving without pain, without aches, was just one thing I used to take for granted. Today my muscles feel as though they have been flash-burned with acid from the inside - just sufficient to make them move like the living cells have been replaced by aging rubber bands, thick and twisted. My new granddaughter doesn't yet know that her limbs belong to her, and here at the other end of the spectrum I no longer feel like mine belong to me. No longer are we one cohesive machine of blood and bone. They are the enemy, decaying and angry. My eyes fall again to the stair in front, pebbles in concrete, inconsequential to any five year old. Before my foot has moved an inch I feel my jaw clench in anticipation and already I am resigned to the discomfort to follow.

The ache is a dull, as if some lazy torturer is standing right behind me, only applying enough pressure to be an annoyance. It sits there, just to the side of the right shoulder blade toward the spine. I could imagine it would be like this lying on a large glass marble; perhaps at first it would be pleasant yet soon it would be just like this pain of mine.

There is a stake being hammered into my lower back, the strikes radiating pain in a way that shatters my brain - or at least that's what if feels like. I lie so still, breathing shallow. All anyone sees is my form on the ground, blue jeans and white shirt on the grey carpet. They walk around me, chat and eat - blissfully unaware of the pain I endure. But what else can they do? Even if the hospital was closer we can't afford the care, who can these days?