Backslide

Since my last post, the days and nights, at times, have been filled with intense physical pain, and an ever present sense of frustration that I do my best to just acknowledge rather than to latch onto and feed. I kind of say, 'Hello frustration. Yes, I know you're there' and then try to just move on from it. Believe me, when in intense pain, not attaching to frustration is much easier said than done. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I had a total backslide. One moment I was off my crutches, slowing getting about, cutting back on my medicine, feeling sassy and, mostly, pain free. And the next moment, I quickly slid back into excruciating pain that lasted for days. Pain that I hadn't felt since the original injury. Up all night, can't go to sleep, crying, can't get comfortable, or get a break from, pain.

So what happened? A combination of doing too much partly because I had too (Aqua Man went out of town for the whole weekend for his job and I had no back up to help and life goes on with a child) and doing too much because I thought I "should" be doing more than I was (I thought I would be the "good" patient who stunned doctors with my ability to heal, well, not so much), and just the natural, lengthy process of healing a knee sprain. At my age (This statement? This seems to be something that, unsolicited, people like to remind me of these days. Great. Super. Kick me while I'm down, why don't ya!).

From this setback I have started to learn my limits, and more importantly I've gotten in touch with the exact type of movements that aggravate my knee and put me back into the place of the original injury. I'm learning to back off when I go too far. I'm learning not to go too far at all. All of it progress. Yes.

But I can't help but feel a bit disheartened today. Just six weeks ago, on Monday I was interviewing for a children's yoga instructor position, and then the next day I was on my butt having slipped and fell in that damn coffee house rendering me totally incapable of teaching. And tomorrow was supposed to be the first day of the start of my Adult Yoga Certification training program something I've been wanting to do for years now and took a tremendous amount of courage and hard work for me to work my way up to being ready to do. Obviously, I am not in a place to participate in this, and if being honest, I am a bit crushed on the eve of the start of that training program.

My best friend, an atheist and great advice giver, keeps reminding me that everything, in fact, really does happen for a reason. Being the cynic that I am, I'm not entirely sure of this. But I do believe this: Either, everything happens for a reason, or, rather, I like to find a reason in everything. I vacillate between the two sense making philosophies.

And the sense making is what I am struggling most with right now. I thought I would find something to replace my previous path by now. I thought I would have already discovered "the reason" I fell and injured my knee. I thought the "what's next" would have presented itself by now; the reason I am currently unable to teach and train in yoga. I so wanted to be the "success story"-to take an injury and turn it into something positive, something else-a new business, a new direction, a great epiphany that set me on a new, positive path. Instead, these days, I'm feeling a bit like an aging, untold story-and a boring one at that.

I know that I am back on track and slowly healing, and making progress. But it is taking all that I have right now, in terms of my healing process, to hold onto the small successes and to accept them as enough, rather than dismissing them as not enough, yet.