Graceful Agony

Someone told me recently that they were excited to know me in 9 months. While that statement seems odd on the surface, it was really a very touching thing to say. You see, I'm having surgery in roughly 3 months to replace this worn down, degenerating, broke-ass hip of mine. And she was telling me how excited she was to see what I was going to do once I didn't have to spend such an inordinate amount on time and energy on dealing with and attempting to manage pain.

I don't like talking about it at any real depth. It's very apparently there...the limp gets so much worse when the pain is worse, and I have had to reach a point where I'm comfortable talking about the big picture stuff, even if it is in a slightly removed fashion. But what it means to my daily life, the countless little compromises I have been making every day for almost 10 years, the countless big compromises my family has to make for me every day and the guilt that accompanies that, the depression, the isolation...I don't know, even the surface level shit feels too flipping dramatic, much less the "deep down stuff".

But recently I found a blog where a person FAR more elegant with her words was able to say so many of the things I feel. I read this there, recently and it struck me as an amazing way to describe a piece of my own "deep down stuff":

I miss the little things….. having the energy to get up and go, watching my son’s Christmas concert without having to worry about how hard the seats are, how long I will be sitting for, what price I will pay the following day……. It isn’t BIG things like ‘Oh I wish I could go skydiving still!” or “I really miss alpine skiing!”…. I really miss just NOT having to be aware….. I am hyper-alert every minute of every day, and it is TIRING! The first thing I think about in the morning when my eyes open is what I have to do just to get through the day…. I always have to be 10 steps ahead of the game….. if I have a coffee date at 5pm, I have to modify everything I do so I know that I will be mobile and functional by the time 5 rolls around….. I miss NOT having to think in those terms…. I miss not having to think of my pain every second of every day whether my pain is bad that day or not…. I always have to be 5-10 steps ahead…… it prevents me from living in the moment at times. - Graceful Agony

I don't have much to add beyond that...just throwing something on here that's been on my mind lately.