There Comes A Time...

...when you start thinking you might have a fighting chance after all.

That moment is truly beautiful. This morning I woke up and my arm ached. It hurt. I couldn't close my hand into a fist, and I could find no comfortable position for it. I was almost panicking, wondering how on earth I was going to finish if I couldn't swing a hammer to whack a chisel with.

Then, somehow, someway, it stopped. I'm not sure if my muscles just warmed up, or if I witnessed an honest-to-goodness-God-put-his-hand-on-mine moment, but it stopped hurting, and I could work. And, despite only having 6 hours of sleep and not very strong hands, I'm nearly done I think. I feel kind of like a patchwork doll - count 'em, 6 bandaids, mostly on my right hand, but the proctor commented that he liked the gesture of it (I like him by the way - he's an extremely helpful and nice guy), so that was kind of a nice affirmation. I'm not sure what else I can do with it to get it really finished, but I think I mostly just need some time away from it so I can really see it again. I have, after all, been whacking at it for 18 hours, 12 of which were today. That's enough to cause brain-freeze in the most hardy of individuals.

Granted, I can barely lift my right arm, and my hand and fingers kind of hurt, I have a couple more blisters than yesterday, and I just spent 18 hours in the studio, but I have a fighting chance. And, come to find out, that's mostly what I wanted - a fighting chance to get it all done and do it well.