loose change

after what felt like the longest and most sedentary week of my life we’ve made it to another monday. my 12th piece! i’ve been dreading sitting down to begin it for most of the week and i’ve spent the entire day putting it off but i refuse to miss a single monday, so my stubbornness won out.

i’m not sure where to begin, or how deep i want to dig. i know i’ve had so many writeable thoughts but a lot of them are difficult to confront. it’s amazing the way a broken wrist knocks you on your ass. i’m constantly trying to mitigate my expectations; the only constant variable in this whole equation is the pain. as of today i can move my four fingers about forty-five degrees and my thumb can only move laterally about fifteen degrees. it’s a massive improvement since last week, when i couldn’t feel them at all, let alone will them to move. but it’s so bizarre to have a hand that doesn’t yet remember how to be a hand. everything feels foreign.

everything has been one day at a time. my whole life has changed pace. it’s difficult to give in to that. i need to focus on healing, but i’ve not adjusted well to the resting aspect. i’ve felt guilty and lazy, like i don’t deserve all of this time off from work, from life. funnily enough i’ve not considered until just now whether or not i deserved to snap my wrist–i’ve been trying to block out the what-ifs and doing a pretty good job at it now. i don’t want to waste time wishing it hadn’t happened–it’s just implied.

there have been really bright spots too. the kindness i’ve been shown by friends and strangers and students and family has carried me up the steeper hills. it’s really hard to ask for help, even when it’s absolutely necessary–i can’t put up my own hair, i can’t drive myself anywhere, i can’t cut my own apples. sam learned to braid my hair, evan came by and picked me up in the work truck for a delivery run, my mom brings me an apple with my oxy every morning.

and i’ve been forced to confront all of these scary things, the scariest one being my own mind in pain. i’ve been scared of countless things and dreamed up hundreds of ways in which things could go wrong. i’ve felt like i didn’t know anything, i had no outline for this, there is no baseline for normal. every new day comes with a new confrontation of these fears, and i feel like i’m finally beginning to run out of things to be afraid of. i’m still afraid, but i feel like i have more control now. the worst part is maybe over.

i’m close to finishing gossip girl. i’m worried i’ll finish it and lose my entire out-of-commission identity, since it’s been such a staple of recovery. especially in the first few days following surgery–going to sleep was terrifying because the second i closed my eyes and put my head down, the only thing i could focus on was the pain, so i’ve been falling asleep to gossip girl. but i’m excited to be freed from the voluntary prison of upper east side drama that i’ve locked myself in.

g and stella have not left my side since the incident. sam calls them my icu nurses. i’ve been under constant observation. i expected it from g, but it’s been impossibly cute being tended to by stella blue–she is so tiny with such big love. she comes running into my room the second the door is opened and jumps on my bed with the tiniest meow you’ve ever heard and eventually curls up into the softest blackest ball of cat and falls asleep on my stomach. i melt!

i don’t feel great about ending the piece here but i don’t have a lot left in me. good time to practice giving myself grace. thank you for bearing with! be kind to yourselves. xxo (with a little sadness and a little optimism), r