I don’t feel at home in my own body.
If you’ve been following along, you know that I experienced an accident while skiing. You know that I spent almost seven weeks in the hospital recovering from my injuries and rehabilitating my body.
I’m getting around better now that I was six weeks ago ... better, even, than I was when I was discharged. But I’m still nowhere close to moving the way I did before the injury. Perhaps I’ll never make it back to that standard. Perhaps I’ll never get close to the standard, and my foot will always drag along the ground. I hope it doesn’t – I hope I get close to moving the way I did before. But even though I’ve figured out how to navigate current reality (slowly, carefully, and with a great deal of thought and attention paid to every single step), I long to be able to move the way I did before.
I don’t feel at home in my own body.
In addition to the loss and alteration of movement, part of this injury is that I’ve experienced a loss and alteration of sensation. Walking outside on a cool and snowy May day in Colorado, I notice that while one leg is cold, the other feels warm. Walking barefoot on the bathroom floor, one foot feels like the floor is heated while the other notices that the tile is cool to the touch. Stretching my hamstrings (which I know have been tight since like 1974), one feels the stretch while the other gets to a point where it just doesn’t move any more. It’s disorienting, and a little confusing.
I don’t feel at home in my own body.
It feels a little like I’m staying for the holidays at a relative’s house. The surroundings are sort of familiar, but not really home. And it feels like as soon as whatever’s happening is finished, I’ll be back in my own home.
Except I won’t. This is my residence from now on. This is how I exist from now on. Disorientated in my own body. It’s obviously not my first choice. But if I’m optimistic, I’ve got a few decades to get used to it. But the truth is still obvious almost every time I move around.
I don’t feel at home in my own body.
trying to pay attention to what's going on in the world around me
New abode, new body discomforts, new perspective on life, same child of God. Peace, Amy
ReplyDeleteI thank you for sharing your reality. There is a fine line between accepting a "new normal" and living with hope and determination. As you know, it is both/and. Holding you in prayer.
ReplyDeleteThank you for speaking truth. I have read many memoirs and autobiographies of people who have recovered from serious accidents and every one of them talk about this same experience of perceptions of who they are being upended and of feeling an uncanny home sickness when there is nothing about them that feels like home. It must be almost impossible. I am so grateful you are doing the almost impossible surrounded by love.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing these thoughts. I feel like that, as I discover I'm not in my twenties anymore, I have had very small glimpses of what you're experiencing, and I don't like it, so I'm sure you don't like it either. Blessings on both your living into this reality and pushing against it.
ReplyDeleteI wish there was something I could say to convince you to stay. But I believe where you end up you'll be needed and wanted there as much if not more. Thank you for the spiritual guidance and friendship through the years.
ReplyDeleteAloha,
Tim