Light at the End

I sit here feeling motivated in the early hours to grab this little window of time to check in and tell you all that I am finally healing, on more levels than one. This week marks 11 weeks of ice, elevation, acupuncture, taping, grinding therapy and miles upon miles of recumbent cycling.  I still walk with a slight hiccup in my giddy-up, this is proving to be the hardest mile to overcome in my marathon.  But yesterday I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. We did something called flossing, I’m sure there are different ways to use these flossing bands but we wrapped one around my right quad just above the knee, like tourniquet tight, went through a round of squats, removed the band, aahhhhhh thank God and then I walked the length of the carpeted room and viola no limp. There I was watching my reflection walk normal.

I am still months away from resuming normal activity but now there is a possibility where there was not.  I still have to go through a daily list of exercises while maintaining that perfect balance of strengthening without re-injury. There are days when I find out too late that I walked too far, did too many reps or just stood on my feet entirely way too long. I then shuffle my work space to include things like cold packs and chairs with pillows so I can sit at a computer while elevating my leg. No easy feat.

But the true healing that has occurred, or I should say that has started to occur because of the timeout that came with my knee surgery.  I bought books, I watched documentaries, I let myself wander down the aisles of bookshelves, intuitively picking up something new to read.  I bought a new journal, downloaded a couple Udemy courses and an audio book. I binged on Lemonade and Stranger Things. I let myself feel all the grief that came with the changes I experienced this spring, physically and emotionally.

Upside down world

In my darkest days I turned to the pain and asked “what are you trying to tell me.” I had deep conversations with my body, especially my heart, asking for the message to help me understand what it needed to heal. Not every answer was clear or easy to accept. I felt a perceptible shift in my awareness that change was near and not necessarily the kind of change that came with excitement, like ooooohhh there is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, this felt more like embarking on a journey of the soul. A journey that starts with going deep into the shadows to meet face to face with all my what ifs.

With personal excavation comes flow and synchronicity.  When you let go and just let our self linger in the moment you’ll find there is an undercurrent of life that carries you from once experience to the next. We are ever changing and to resist that change is to completely deny yourself the joys of life’s ebbs and flow.

I feel a new me emerging from the process. I am shedding what is no longer needed and embracing a new wind that has come to help guide me to that next place. I’m terrified and I am excited.

Let the real healing begin.

🕉 namasté

And if you have a moment please go read the latest post Walking Home from my photog friend Allison. She managed to captured some beautiful and intimate moments of her husband who is getting ready to leave this experience and move on to the next. Its quite magical to have a window seat and witness this kind of journey towards something so sacred.