Hello again...

“Where was I?”

“You were growing.”

“Oh right…”

-                                - When Harry Met Sally

It’s been some time since I’ve written – in fact, it’s been the entire length of time I’ve had a broken leg.  Things got kind of nutty around here after I broke my leg.  I had to deal with work, and grading papers and getting around school proved pretty difficult.  I’ve had to navigate (literally and figuratively) getting around and doing stuff at home.  Thankfully, my mother has been here, helping, which has been a miracle because I couldnt’ve done it without her.  My kids have had a hard time with this, too, because they’re used to me being able to do anything for and with them, and not so much in this cast and on crutches.

The biggest thing for me was not getting used to being on crutches or having a cast on, but getting used to not being able to do all the things I normally do every day. And apparently I do a lot in a day.  You don’t realize how much you do in a day until you have to tell someone else how to do it. 

Being independent and being someone with kids, husband, dogs, and a full-time job, I am used to moving fast and getting a lot done.  Yet, with the cast and crutches, I could do almost nothing I was used to doing.  When on crutches, you’re down a leg, but also two hands.  I couldn’t even carry a cup of coffee at first, let alone make the kids’ lunches or clean up the house.

And everything goes more slowly in cast-and-crutch-land.  Grading papers was almost impossible the first week because I was taking pain meds and I couldn’t get comfortable.  Getting the dogs water took forever, because I had to move the bowl from surface to surface in between the dogs’ feeding place and the sink.

I am NOT complaining about this, mind you.  I am aware of how lucky I am…that there are people who lose their legs forever and their life is forever like this.  I get how fortunate I am that this is a temporary condition.

But slowing my life down was extraordinarily difficult for me.  One of my students said, “Maybe this broken leg was a sign that you should let others do more for you, that you need to slow down.”  Maybe so.  Or maybe I just needed to recognize what I do accomplish in any one day and understand that it’s enough…in fact, it’s a lot.

I appreciate all the things I can do normally.  I miss baking my own bread.  I miss walking the dogs.  I miss working outside in the yard and garden.  I miss cooking dinner…something I never, ever thought I’d say.  I miss cleaning and organizing our house (although Dear Husband is glad that I haven’t been able to organize anything; for six weeks, he’s been able to find everything in the house).  These things are the ones that I can’t wait to get back to, once the cast is off.

In the meantime, what I’ve learned from this is that I appreciate my life, I appreciate little things that I enjoy doing each day, and I can’t wait to get back to “normal.”