On Necks

I think necks can be very beautiful things. There is something whimsical about a slender, elegant neck protruding gracefully from the seams of a lacy dress. That is the vision I had for my own wedding dress. The only difference, of course, is that my neck is anything but slender and graceful.

I feel as though my back hunches outwards a little more than I would like, and my neck crouches on top not unlike a small frog. It’s all about posture, they tell you, and I have terrible posture.

Well the wedding dress was nice and I had a lovely day and didn’t think once (not once!) about my neck so all was well and ended well and now my dress is up in the attic somewhere and it might be gathering mould so goodness me I really must sort that out.

I like the paintings of elegant ladies with their heads turned sideways, their necks stretched out as their smooth hair softly curls behind their ears.

In many cultures long necks are seen as beautiful assets to a woman’s features. For example in the Kayan tribe in Thailand women wear brass rings around their necks from a young age, adding rings as they get older to elongate their necks. Some women sport 20 pounds of rings around their necks!

However despite their necks people can be beautiful. They can be beautiful in spite of them too. They can also be beautiful without taking into account how pretty their necks are. Their necks could be their sole redeeming feature as well.

This woman sports a long neck. She is stunning.

 

This woman has very little neck. She is stunning too.

I woke up Saturday morning with a tremendous neck ache in which I couldn’t move towards my left at all. I reckoned I must have slept wrong, took some ibuprofen and carried on with my day. Because it was the weekend and he wasn’t commuting to work, D drove everywhere (because he reckons I drive too slow and my car is a rattly old thing) so this morning when I got in my car and turned to look over my shoulder at the ‘blind spots’, a sharp pain seared through my neck and into my shoulder blade and I gasped in shock.

Google tells me it could be a variety of illnesses ranging from a simple pulled muscle to lung cancer. Lovely. As a self diagnosed hypochondriac, I tend to stay away from WebMD when an ailment afflicts me because my mind goes into overdrive and I start writing my last will and testament and become emotional and clingy to my loved ones, much to their annoyance. My mother reckons I have had all the cancers so far, and come out miraculously unscathed.

So for this one I think I will carry on as usual and even go to the gym tonight and not lift any weights but step like mad on the step machine. I will take ibuprofen and force myself to eat my meals even though this pain is making my stomach churn.

The NHS website presented a link titled ‘Living with pain’ and I thought to myself, gosh, some people have to live with pain day in day out! This has been going on for three days already and I am beginning to tire of this constant ache. So, you know, it could be worse.

Have you experienced any neck problems? What are your thoughts on necks in general?