The x-rays showed that I'm about 70% healed. I'm cleared to resume "normal" activities now! I've been taking my landlord's bike out for 30-40 minutes at a time, exploring the neighborhood, and yesterday I took a leisurely walk up to the trailhead and back. It's odd, after almost 3 months of feeling vulnerable and broken down, I'm not sure where to begin. I already miss the daily naps I was taking to restore my mood. But now I can achieve some of the fitness goals I dreamed of when I moved here. The extra time I've been spending outdoors is doing much more for my mood than napping on the couch!
Making of a Marathon Runner
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Monday, August 8, 2016
More x-rays
This doctor was direct and serious, no joking around. This break is a good one, and it has shifted, which isn't uncommon, and the bone should heal regardless. He said the boot needs to stay on at all times, no excuses, and he'd put me in a cast if I didn't comply. I hate hearing that. But today, without my ibuprofen, I am aware that the joint is irritated and needs more time to heal. It's been a weird few weeks without a job to go to, without a routine, and my health seems like just another part of my life that's out of control. So I need to grasp this one thing and stick to it because if I don't it will continue to be a wild card.
This is my worst trigger, knowing something isn't right. Unfortunately, it's just wrong enough that there's absolutely nothing I can do. All I can do, literally, is nothing. It's a lesson I learned years ago, I remember it well. I recall my manager at work sending that message out into the room, just like that. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to do nothing at all. It seemed out of character for her. She's aggressive in some ways. If you have an ache or a pain, you must see a doctor to have it assessed. If you get a stomach ache after you eat something, you must have an allergy or an intolerance, and you must change your diet and your lifestyle to make it better. If you smell an odor, you must take every precaution to get rid of it, for it might cause an irritation and lead to lung cancer. I could go on. So when I heard her say this I thought it must have come from her acupuncturist or her wise therapist friend. It stuck with me, maybe because it seemed like an impossible task. Especially in the context of our work, where the motto was, if one thing doesn't work, try something else, and another something else until you get it right, or else we don't get paid. Not trying equated to failing in my world.
So there's something metaphysical about this challenge. It's like that movie where Paul Rudd is teaching Jason Segel to surf, and he keeps telling him, "Do less, you're still doing too much," until the guy is just lying there on his surf board on the beach. And then he says "Ok, now you're not doing enough." I mean, I'm not doing anything right now, but I am...I'm actively reclining with my leg up, with a computer in front of me so I don't start to feel like I'm losing my mind due to staring out the window. So relatively speaking, I'm not doing anything. But that's so the cells in my bones can back to regrowing themselves, and so the ligaments can stop straining to keep me upright, and stop getting irritated and demanding that my brain absorb seratonin to cope with the pain it's sensing.
Obviously this whole thing is driving me a little nuts.
Monday, July 25, 2016
Making of a Banjo Player
It's day 7 and I am proud to say I have completed a beginner lesson. Have a look.
Saturday, July 23, 2016
Stamina exercises
It's not like this injury sidelined me from running. I did that voluntarily. Zoe noticed on my blog history that I had only posted twice this year (on this blog). Nothing to post.
I started taking antidepressants a little more than a year ago. And oral contraceptives. And at first I was obsessed with the changes I noticed. Everything evened out. No more wild highs and lows. Big improvement. But running made me feel tired and heavy. I remember trying to do the distances I'd been doing, and not feeling the compulsion to reach for a goal. I would hit the path, and aim for the lakefront, and sit and rest there. My 5 mile lunch runs suddenly turned into 1.5 miles. The four and five-finger signs my coworker used to hold up to ask how far I'd run were met with eye rolls because I didn't want to admit my failure.
Soon I felt like none of it mattered anymore. I stopped buying running shoes and apparel and went back to decadent lunches of burritos and cheeseburgers. I told myself a fat layer wasn't something to be ashamed of. It's not! But after seeing myself 15 pounds lighter earlier that year, I have to admit I didn't like the direction I was heading in.
Now I can't even picture that leaner self. I dreamed of getting back on the wagon this summer, in preparation for a new fit life in one of the world's fittest cities. I'm still dreaming.
But enough of the wallowing. I'm here, it wasn't easy to get here, there's a good chance I can work back up to my former fitness once this leg thing is healed. I realize that these days I spend ruminating about my situation could be spent building other valuable strengths. When I'm painting I feel enmeshed in the process. My detail-oriented brain takes over and tells my hands how to manipulate the thing in front of me. I get a thrill out of stepping back and seeing what I've made, and a giddy satisfaction that it wasn't even "me" who made it, but my higher self, which isn't easy to conjure. Today I picked up my banjo. Immediately started to tune the 5th string and snapped it. Not unlike my fibula. No worries, there was a spare. I found a tutorial on YouTube and tried to learn the picking sequence for Cripple Creek. In another hour I was sort of--almost--slowly--playing the banjo! After several attempts to teach my muscles a pattern, I dreamt of how much easier it would be after I practiced for a week or two. And then added on another section. By the end of the year I might know this song by heart. That's how I learn, through observation and mimicry. Music is the one thing--and maybe art restoration too--that can be learned that way. In fact, it demands it. It takes repetition, determination and faith that the outcome will be worthwhile.
The only feature film I've seen this year was Finding Dory, on my birthday. I'd have seen it even if I didn't take my daughter. I saw the first Nemo movie before I had her, and it was breathtaking. This one didn't disappoint either. There's one lesson I keep coming back to from Dory. She becomes lost easily, like we all do. And she never worries that she's out of options. There's always a way. She goes with the flow and it always seems to take her (eventually) to where she needs to be. At one point she triumphantly arrives where she thinks she needs to be, in fact where all signs say she needs to be. It's the place where her inner child/fishling tells her to go back to. But it turns out to be the wrong place for her to be. She is needed elsewhere, and she can only be her true self if she stays on her course. So she again has to make her way back out into the world to reclaim the life she was meant to lead. I think it will win an Oscar. Just kidding. But it is a really great moral, one that probably goes way over the average kid's head. I too struggled to reach a place that my inner child, my inner adventurer told me to go. But until I reach deep down and figure out where, or even if, I belong in this foreign place, the puzzle remains unsolved.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Broke.
I followed my heart in vain to this magical place where the sky vibrates bright blue every morning and stuns with rainbows and light shows in the evening. My compulsion to see it all filled me with an uncanny energy. I wanted to see every lake, summit, wildflower, sunbeam. I relished the feeling of falling in love. I lay awake in the darkest hours wishing for the sun to come up so I could have another adventure.
I've been reliving the events of the past month, and sorting through the feelings of regret, guilt, confusion, embarrassment and exhaustion that have thwarted any sense of peace that I had anticipated during the 1000 mile journey to my new home.