Forced Slow Down

This past month school has been so intense I’ve had little time for anything else.  I’ve taken stats, marriage and family, human kinetics, visited my husband to help pack and get the house ready to sell, done a fashion shoot for my etsy store…and read and studied and crammed and written tests.  I’ve sat in the same classroom all day every day for four weeks.  I’m in the last phase of my summer semester, and this week I was looking forward to starting my online psych course as well as tennis three times a week.  For the first time in 6 months, I won’t have to wake up at 6:00 am, and I’ll have time to plan and cook meals and start my new exercise regime. 

Saturday was crazy busy all day, so on Sunday I woke up, made coffee and grabbed a muffin that I made the day before, and watched the social network to relax.  It was heaven!  No studying, no reading, no worrying.  After the movie ended, I got up to take Stella for a walk, after which I would clean my room, organize my closet, workout, and get ready for the next few weeks.  I skipped down the stairs, leash in hand, with my Mom behind me going to her eliptical in the garage.  All of a sudden, I was hitting cement hard with the top of my foot, scraping my limbs up as I went down.  OUCH.  My Mom went into Mom mode, ordering me to sit down, then checking my foot for swelling and seeing if I could walk.  I hobbled back into the house and put my foot up, googling whether it was a sprain or break and how to treat it.  I was optimistic at first, thinking I could ice it a bit and be back to normal in time for tennis the next evening. 

Yeah…that didn’t happen.  I ended up having to drop tennis and have spent the last two and a half days mostly on the couch.  I hate this.  The more I use my ankle, the more it swells and hurts, so staying off it for the time being is best.  Walking my dog is painful, so I haven’t gone out yet besides doing that.  UGH!!!!  It’s terrible being incapacitated, and over the past couple of days my empathy for chronic pain sufferers has increased.  My appreciation for my extremely good health most of the time has increased also.  It’s funny what you don’t realize when you don’t experience it, like what it would feel like to not be able to do what you want to do.  I always assume I’ll be able to do what I want to do in life, with hard work of course.  I never think about not accomplishing my goals because of physical infirmity.  Funny what we take for granted, non?  Because some people deal with this stuff and much worse for their whole lives.  While I’m still frustrated and annoyed with my condition right now, I have to pause and be grateful that it’s temporary…and minor.

What are you grateful for today?