I have someone rooting for me...in the present; face to face; hand to hand.
I feel hopeful...today. Hopeful is good, even if it may be false hope. Hope helps me to continue to put one foot in front of the other.
My full-time job is self-care and to keep my limbs working and maybe even to get some muscle tone back. But, if that isn't possible at this point, perhaps I can forego more atrophy.
I cannot hike the Appalachian Trail in my current condition. But if I could, my full-time job would be to put one foot in front of the other. My current journey is not a trail through physical woods; it is a trail through physical trials. Any trial is more than physical.
Soul trials. Soul trails.
Every trail has its trials - lonely, arduous, taxing miles. Every trail has its triumphs - sun ray kisses, zephyr whispers, wildflower scents, aroma of cedar, discovering one's self.
I can draw on trail memories I have forged and apply them to my current trial.
Will this current trial ever end?
"End." What an odd thought. Perhaps it will never end until my last breath. And damn it, I'll die trying. ("You damn straight!" says my self to my self.)
This morning I opened and read an email that in its signature stated:
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop. ~Rumi”
Later this morning I continued my reading of the book Grandma Gatewood's Walk.
In 1968 when Grandma Emma Gatewood was around 81 years old her ex-husband, P.C. Gatewood, was on his death bed. P.C. physically beat Emma for decades. She divorced him in 1941, after 35 years of abuse. This morning I read on page number 244:
"According to [P.C. and Emma's son] Nelson, [P.C.] made one dying request in his final days. He wanted to see Emma. He wanted her to come stand in his doorway just for a moment.
The woman who had walked more that ten thousand miles since she left him refused to take those steps."
Upon reading that last sentence I enthusiastically hooted, Good on you Grandma!! Go Emma!!
And then, I pondered.....
4 comments:
Carol...you have a lot of folks rooting for you to keep putting one foot in front of the other and praying you will someday be able to fulfill your dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail again. Life throws us curve balls and all we can do it keep swinging. I called my pain management doctor last week needing another epidural in my back and was told he was no longer on my network. So I wrote a note on the "patient portal" to my doctor requesting another referral. They replied they would get me one. That was two weeks ago and I have not gotten it yet. I'm fixing to write them another more pointed note. I went in for a checkup Tuesday and my doctor keeps adding "diagnosis" to my online medical file he's never discussed with me. I asked him about it and he said, "Well, at your age you likely have those "things." Crap! It I don't have the symptoms and have never been diagnosed, why would he speculate? I'm sure it's somehow connected to him getting more money from my insurance company. Anyway, I'm fixing to write him a very blunt note on his "patient portal" about my back problem being diagnosed many years ago and MY ARTHRITIS IS REAL and would really appreciate it if he would send me the referral I requested. Good luck with your problems. Writing about them helps me. :) HUGS!
Indeed...you go, Grandma! He should have valued you when he had you.
SP
I got the referral fifteen minutes after I wrote the note. :)
Good on you Anna! :D I know you are looking forward to some relief. <3
Thanks for the roots and the kudos. Same backatcha.
Omg...regarding the doc adding diagnoses just because of someone's age. That's unethical at the very least.
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