owie.

Argh. I slipped on some ice (it was buried under freshly fallen snow! A couple of centimentres of snow aren't supposed to be slippery!) on my walk to the streetcar this morning, and the first point of contact with the ground was my elbow — right where the bone is. It hurts. I put an icepack on it when I got to work, so it looks like it's not going to swell too much, but I'm going to have a lovely wallop of a bruise soon.

This has lead to the discovery that I use my elbows a lot. I like leaning on things, apparently. Like when I'm just scrolling through web pages. Or when I'm eating my lunch at my desk. (It's true: I have no table manners when I eat by myself, in my closed office, with no one else around. I think that's fair.) Or just sitting idly by, propping my chin up with a hand.

This has not helped my feeling that, lately, I have been a wee fragile flower. I have had a lot of accidents — aches, really — within the last few months. All of them have been minor — the worse was a recent lower abs/groin muscle strain that made being upright fun for a couple of days — but it's been almost constant. I feel like my curling teammates must think I am the most delicate person ever. I always have some sort of injury when I show up: usually shoulder strains from climbing but also, once, a left pec strain (yeah. Don't ask). And then there are the myriad bruises and scraches.

The thing is, given what I do, it all does make sense, when I stop to think rationally about it. I climb once or twice a week; I also curl. I've been climbing harder routes (5.10d+), and the climbing gym has recently started on its cycle of "let's make routes that are great for people who are over 6 feet." (We actually know who is setting some of these, and he's 6'4", so I'm not exaggerating. He doesn't set routes for little people.) So, I have to be more careful about overextending my shoulders; that's just the nature of the exercise, but when I'm really into a climb, I forget. That hip bruise? I went ass over tea kettle at curling the other day, and landed solidly on my hip. That'll do it. And, speaking of curling, mid-back and shoulder strains are not unheard of when you first start sweeping.

But still, there's the nagging feeling that I am just being delicate and weak. I mean, I really fell in love with climbing because it made me feel fit and strong, not ... fragile and broken. I feel like there's been some sort of bait-and-switch.

(Or maybe I'm just too stupid to stop when the stopping is good.)