Four Tendons and a Forecast
I apologize to all of you who stop by and find an empty room here lately. It's been an interesting few weeks (and interesting is not nearly a big enough word, but it'll have to do for the moment), and while I'm writing constantly it takes more of the journaling form, and this has never really been a journal.
It's not that I have nothing to say; there's almost too much, actually, and then there's always the concern that all the wonderful, gratifying, uplifting and grace-filled moments I've been experiencing might be...hmm...how do I put this?
Boring.
Yeah. That's the ticket. A life-changing experience doesn't come with a guarantee that it will be anything remotely resembling fascinating to the rest of the world.
I do miss you, though. I made a conscious decision when I came back home to stop reading blogs for a while, or at least cut way back. It's too easy to wander through other lives and forget that I have my own that might need looking after. I have a lot of catching up to do one of these days.
I will say that peace might be underrated. Just a thought.
As I wrote in the previous post, I stay busy but something is missing, and that's chaos. I have it easier than many -- I have a lot more control, working at home. I can usually pick and choose my battles, if there have to be battles. There's no office manager riding my butt. I get up, make the bed, get something to eat, settle down for a day of details, and most evenings about 7 or so I head out to a church. I sit in a Sunday School room and read the posters and look at the crafts on the wall. There's a list of the Ten Commandments in a 7-year-old's vernacular that cracks me up every time ("Do NOT take God's name in vein"; "Be nice to your mom and dad").
And then there's the liturgy of recovery, familiar words, assurances, reminders, hope. There's laughter, and there are tears, sometimes great sobs of fear or relief. There's usually a 10-minute smoke break. And at the end, all these people stand and hold hands and pray, linked by pain and possibilities.
Someone always says, "I'm glad you're here."
There are jerks, too. A drunk ass is likely to be a sober ass. I run across people who want to work my program, who assume they know what I'm doing or feeling or thinking by the way I say something, or raise an eyebrow. This always amazes me. The arrogance takes me by surprise.
The majority, though, are secure in their serenity, and humble. Ask them how long they've been sober and they're likely to look at their watches and calculate when they got out of bed that morning, understanding that we all live life on the edge of a nasty abyss. They pass over their phone numbers, maybe, and offer encouragement, but they mostly wait, knowing you know they're there if you need them.
As for the jerks...
We avoid retaliation or argument. Damn right.
Anyway, I do have lots to say, and if I can find a way to do it I will. Soon.
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Now for something completely different...
I've been checking things off a mental list lately, things to change, things to fix. One of them was yesterday.
GOOD NEWS: I went to the doctor.
BAD NEWS: He said "Oh, no" a lot.
Six weeks ago I got talked into playing softball, and within five minutes I had a refresher course in gravity. Running backwards is apparently a skill I've lost, and when a fly ball headed my way I turned and my feet got irritated at me, apparently. I hit the ground, and I assume I caught myself with my left hand, although I was pretty busy trying to persuade the other players that I'd meant to do that.
The next day I had sore knees, a sore shoulder, and a sore back. The back pain went away in a couple of days, and the knees followed pretty much, although my left one still groans a bit on the stairs.
The shoulder is an amazing thing, really. Knees and hips are useful, ankles are nice, jaws are functional, and I really wouldn't want to live without elbows. Not to mention that old reliable, the apposable thumb.
But reach around to scratch an annoying itch in the middle of your back, and you'll appreciate your shoulder, trust me. It's the All-Star.
I just have to live with the itch now.
I tore my rotator cuff. Or, to be more precise, one of the four tendons that keep the shoulder joint on the straight and narrow. We'll confirm this next week with an MRI, but it was pretty obvious to the good doctor. And to me. I looked it up and everything.
Some rotator cuff injuries are mild and never noticed; over 70% of autopsies done on people over 75 show a rotator cuff tear, just normal degeneration with age. And some are helped with time and physical therapy.
But traumatic rotator cuff injuries in patients under 60 usually require surgery, so that's probably what I'm looking at. I'll know more in a week or so.
What I know now, though, is that every day is a blessing, and that even if life never gives us a break there is still plenty to be grateful for, and I am, of course. Hey, I've been up since 5 a.m. That's over four hours of gratitude right there, and the day is young.
8:51:29 AM 
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