It’s Friday morning. I should be leaving for work. Instead, I’m enjoying the dregs of a French press of black, black coffee, and smiling rather enigmatically as I appreciate the changing daylight as thin clouds waft in front of the sun, toying with the quality of light seeping past my linen curtains.
It is a fine, fine morning. For the first time in… I really can’t tell you how long — I feel better this morning than I did at the start of my work week. My back feels great, I’ve got energy, I’m happy, I’m looking forward to my day, and I’m relatively stress-free.
It’s been a long, long time.
So I’m smiling a lot. Big! I like this feeling. Thus, I’ve pressed pause. I feel like my life has been out of my hands for a while now. Months. This week, I’ve taken it back. And what a difference it makes inside me.
Life won’t be perfect any time soon. Is it ever? Will my back be all better now? Of course not. I’ll have hard times still, days that make me curl up inside. That’s fine, that’s life. But what today means is: “Good” just got better. When “getting by” is all you’re familiar with after months, “good” is fucking fantastic.
My week has been difficult, though. One of the important things to know about rehabbing is, anything that changes the nature of your pain is a bad thing. In the last 3-4 weeks, I’ve been dealing with a new kind of pain, and we’ve been having trouble figuring out how to get past it. I had a few great days last week that I thought were from sleeping differently, but I think NOW that it’s proof that making out/getting smushed by a big man on top of me, might be great for my back. Who knew? So, I had a few good days, but then I lapsed back into the same old pain I’d had the two weeks previous.
Last night I tried a new stretch. Today, a fucking WORLD of difference. See? I’m smiling. Big, big smile. These eyes of mine are much nicer with a sparkle in them.
Funny, Wednesday night, I kind of told someone to lay off the encouragement and positivity, when I was having a hard time finding it within myself, because sometimes encouragement and positivity doesn’t really help. Sometimes you just have to accept, “Yeah, you know what? This does suck. It’s shitty. It’s something I need to change, something I’m able to change. But I need to acknowledge: It is shitty.”
I don’t get into those funks for too long, but I need to let myself go there. Own the badness of it all, acknowledge why change is required. Find it within myself to find a way to work with it, and then find a plan for overcoming it. Sometimes, however, all you can do is hang on to yer surfboard and ride that wave. That’s what I’ve had to do most of the winter. Lately, though, I’ve begun mastering the wave. And the empowerment has been a long, long time coming.
Can’t really explain to you the feeling I have this morning. Knowing “good” just got better, that my energy’s finally improving, that the tide seems to be changing, it’s got me in a very nice place emotionally. THIS — energy, feeling good, positivity — is what this fight of my life, for health and fitness, has been for. I want to enjoy life and enjoy choice again.
This feeling I have, of believing I’m finally coming to that place, is the existential feeling of enduring a hellish night only to make it through to dawn and see the sun’s kaleidoscope of colours poking up over the horizon. There’s no greater feeling of survival than that dawn you’ve waited so long to see.
And maybe this is my dawn.
At the very least, it’s a fantastic start to my Friday.